


Lines of Lightning

by sunsetmog



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-15
Updated: 2005-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-30 20:53:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/335948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy had always thought he knew Sean - knew him to the extent that his behaviour was predictable, in the same way meteorologists picked up on a series of stimuli and presented a comprehensive weather report.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lines of Lightning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bungee](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bungee).



> ‘Lines of Lightning’ comes from Counting Crows’ _Accidentally in Love._
> 
> Originally posted [here in February 2005.](http://sunsetmog-fics.livejournal.com/18332.html)

**One**

Sean is rubbish at flirting; he's like some stupid kid in the playground offering to hold your hand on the way to the bus stop and bringing you an apple every morning. Billy just couldn't understand how Sean had ever managed to get himself a wife with seduction techniques like these. But then, Billy reminded himself as he aimed a sly kick at the bathroom door; Sean had managed to lose himself a wife as well. And that appeared to be just plain careless on Sean's part, and completely unlike the Sean that Billy knew. And Billy had always thought he knew Sean - knew him to the extent that his behaviour was predictable, in the same way meteorologists picked up on a series of stimuli and presented a comprehensive weather report. The Sean that Billy knew and liked wasn't stupid enough to lose something he cared about. And if he had done, Sean would always know where to get a replacement; he was renowned for his organisational skills.

Billy didn't want to be anyone's replacement. 

He didn't want any of this. 

He didn't want Sean flirting with him. He didn't want Sean's arm snaking its way across the back of his chair in the restaurant, he didn't want Sean's hand on his knee under the table. Billy didn't want Sean buying him a drink and asking him how he'd been - all the time behaving like it was a _date_ and like none of the others were even there, sat around the edge of the table and nudging each other. Billy didn't want Sean flirting with him; Billy didn't want _any_ of it. 

Billy should have realised _months_ ago. He should have noticed; he should have seen beneath the innocence of increasingly frequent phone calls and the calculated simplicity of hundreds of emails. 

But more than all of that, most of all, Billy didn't want to come back to his hotel room with a bulging erection and a memory of Sean cupping his elbow to help him into the taxi, or the pressure of Sean's hand on his thigh as they pulled up outside Billy's hotel. Billy didn't want any of that. He wanted things back the way they were. When things appeared to make sense, when he didn't have to try and avoid Sean's eye as he chucked a handful of dollars at the cab driver, when he didn't have to feel Sean's gaze burning reproachfully into his back as he rushed into the hotel foyer. 

Billy wasn't excruciatingly aware of the pressure of his own cock against his zip. A pressure that Billy was taking great pains to ignore, despite the fact he appeared to be indulging in some kind of lingering fantasy regarding a naked Sean Astin and Billy spread-eagled on top of him. 

Christ. Billy was totally and utterly fucked. 

Not just utterly fucked, but hard to go along with it. Billy slammed the bathroom door and watched the doorframe shake with an embarrassing degree of satisfaction.

Billy had had a shite day. 

Billy had had the kind of day where every single, little, tiny thing pissed him off and he had been forced to quench his desire to hit things hard and repeatedly. He'd only been in the country twenty four hours and already he wanted to go home again. He just didn't understand this place, (this hotel) with its _speed_ and its _yes sir no sir three bags full_ attitude, all with a side helping of snide superiority. This whole place did terrible things to his state of mind, inflating his own importance and poking at his ego with promises and compliments. Billy burned with embarrassment. This - everything - was just _wrong_. Billy's world had shifted somehow; shifted to encompass a reality where he and Sean had become a distinct possibility and not just someone's bad idea of a joke. 

Billy didn't much like this reality. He wanted his old one back, where he and Ali had been happy. Where Sean and Christine had been happy. Where things had ended well and not in the law courts or in the middle of a crowded pub after a Celtic match. 

Billy shook his head. This wasn't something he wanted to go into right now. He wanted to have a shower, go to bed and fall asleep without once thinking about Sean. 

_Sean_. 

Fuck. Billy narrowed his eyes, picked up his towel from where he'd left it on the floor earlier that day, and stormed into the bathroom. The hotel toilet paper was orange, and Billy was _not_ in the mood for orange toilet paper, so he turned the shower on and then called up the front desk to demand that they change it. He wasn't amused when they asked him in a polite (but condescending) manner which colour he would prefer, so he slammed the phone down with a loud "don't worry about it". He then (because he was ashamed of himself and fucking angry and the shower wasn't hot enough yet) marched around the room with his fists clenched, growling, because fucking hell, he could fucking growl if he felt like it, couldn't he? Unless there was some fucking law against it in this godforsaken fucking country, of course, which there probably was... Billy shook his head and pulled open the glass door to the shower. Fucking _hell_ that was hot. 

Billy had had the kind of day where if anyone were to have asked him how he was feeling, he would have said one word: _hate_. 

It was a strong word, but Billy had had a strong kind of day. 

Billy hated it when people over-generalised about his country. He didn't really give a damn if people criticised the specifics: Blair, or the state of the economy or the sheer existence of the stay-fresh-for-seven-days-white-loaf. He didn't particularly care if people criticised their sporting prowess. But if he heard one more person nod sagely and commiserate over violent soccer fans ( _football_ , for God's sake) or had some crass American say to him about how the weather over here must be a welcome relief from the rain over there (if Billy owned an umbrella - which he didn't, because he'd only leave it on the bus or in a pub, and anyway, hats were just as capable of keeping the rain off - he'd be extremely tempted to hit the culprit over the head with it) or had another maitre'd say he must try the coffee because it was better than the British equivalent, then he might be forced to commit mass genocide for the good of humanity. Billy hated this crappy hotel. 

Billy was in a fucking shite mood, and he just _hated_. He especially hated the crappy, shitty coffee table in the hotel room, and he had done from the very first moment he'd seen it. Which was why he had considered it perfectly appropriate to fall into the hotel room the previous evening, give the porter an extortionate tip, lock the door, pull his jacket and his shoes off, and then he'd kicked the table leg and given it one hell of a hefty thump. The subsequent yelling and hopping around the room had done nothing to improve his neighbours' perception of him; and as he'd gone increasingly more red in the face, Billy had made the hasty decision that he hated bare feet. Not as much as he hated the sodding coffee table, but they were on the same scale. 

Billy adjusted the temperature in the shower, until the water rushing down his body was comfortably hot and not burning. He raised his face into the jets, rubbing his eyes sleepily and yawning. 

He sighed, reaching for the shampoo. 

Billy sometimes wished he could be more like Sean. 

Billy sometimes hated the fact he wished he could be more like Sean.

Sean didn't hate anything or anybody. Well, maybe people who dropped litter and those who didn't appear to care about politics or the future of their country, and sometimes he probably quite disliked those people who ingratiated themselves and interfered in his private life, his divorce, seeking out candid shots of his children, and he had certainly not liked being fat and how it had made him feel about his own body, but if you asked him, Sean would always say he's not the kind of person to hate things. He'd always said he didn't have it in him. 

Billy was inclined to believe that was true. Which was why Billy was in his shower, alone in his suite, missing that all too brief touch of Sean's hand against his leg. Which was why he wasn't away somewhere pinning Sean to the nearest mattress and getting rid of this strangled _need_ he'd been suppressing since before the plane landed. 

If Billy had given in to Sean's offer (the offer that was whispered and spoken in looks, in touches, and finally spelled out in simple words - _come home with me_ ), then Billy knew that nothing would be the same again. Because he couldn't give Sean what he wanted ( _love_ ); only what Billy needed ( _release_ ), and if there was anything that could guarantee the destruction of their friendship, it was Billy taking advantage of Sean's feelings. 

And Billy had no desire at all to hurt Sean. 

The phone rang just after he'd turned the faucet off. He rushed across the bedroom, stubbing his toe on the rug to get to the phone in time, so instead of answering with his usual 'hello?', whoever had rung him had been subjected to 'For fucking Christ's sake... shit shit shit,' - which really wouldn't have gone down too well if it had been anyone else other than one of his best friends. 

"Are you alright?" Sean asked, and his voice was filled with the kind of concern that Billy wanted to shove back in his face. Hard.

"Just stubbed my fecking toe," Billy grumbled, as he sank down onto the edge of the bed and picked at his foot. "rushing for the phone."

"Sorry, Billy." Sean sounded contrite, which made Billy feel even worse, considering it wasn't exactly Sean's fault. "I was worried I would have woken you."

"I just got out of the shower." Billy explained, and whilst he wanted to stop complaining and start apologising for behaving like some stupid kid, he couldn't quite get the words out. Instead, he found himself running his fingers through his dripping hair and tetchily telling Sean how he'd forgotten his shower gel and he was stuck using the freebie, which smelt like lavender. "I smell like a fucking _girl_ , Astin," Billy moaned, "Worse than that, I smell like an old woman. How hard is it to put unisex toiletries in a hotel room?"

"Are you alright, Bill?" Sean asked finally. "You've been kinda on edge ever since you got here."

Billy closed his eyes, and wished he had more clothes on. He'd only had time to grab the towel from off the floor in the bathroom, wrapping it round his waist as he'd crossed the room. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said finally. 

"I told you you could stay here, Billy." Sean said gently, "You didn't need to stay in a hotel." 

Billy sighed heavily. He'd known that well enough when he'd booked the hotel. He'd known that and purposefully ignored it, not wanting to deal with the pressure of having Sean around all day every day. He hadn't wanted to drive himself insane knowing that Sean was just the other side of the wall; that Sean was all around him. His brain wouldn't have lasted the week.

Billy didn't really know when it had started, this slow melding of friendship into something else. 

It certainly hadn't always been like this. They'd always been close, him and Sean and Dom and Lij and Orlando hanging around. But at some point in the last few months, him and Sean and Dom and Lij and Orlando had changed - melted, merged, shifted, refracted - until it had become just him and Sean. Not that he'd _stopped_ being close with Lij and Dom and the others (come on, Dom and him were so fucking special, they'd never end), it was just that... something had changed between him and Sean. 

It hadn't been like this when Christine had still been a part of Sean's life. When she'd flown over to NZ (Billy sometimes even said it like that in his head - enn zed) and they'd all converged on the Astins to chuck things on the barbecue and drink beer until the shadows lay like a blanket over the countryside, he and Sean were still part of a bigger picture. The hobbitsnorli picture. Even when Sean had smiled and hastily rearranged all the food on the barbecue, maintaining that he didn't want anyone to get food poisoning, his arm had slipped around Christine's waist and he'd kissed her forehead. They'd all acquiesced to Sean's desire for ultimate barbecue power, and had all been pleasantly surprised when they'd enjoyed chicken that wasn't a dangerous shade of black and pink. And hazy evenings had been spent on Sean's veranda, whiling the hours away in comfortable companionship, with never a hint of this, well, attraction, that had slowly taken over Billy's life in the last few months. 

It hadn't even started when Sean's marriage had begun to creak and bow and strain under the immense pressure of being half a world away. Not even when Sean had started the long and drawn out process that had resulted in his divorce. 

It had been more recent, this gradual and significant change in the way they felt about each other. Billy couldn't have pinpointed the exact date of the first phone call. They'd always rung each other, see, so it was really no different when Sean had started to ring him a bit more frequently. It wasn't that different when Billy rang _him_ a bit more frequently. Phone calls had stopped being sporadic (at least on Billy's part; Billy was fully aware that Sean had a page in his organiser where he kept a methodical note of when he'd last been in contact with his friends so that he didn't lose sight of where everyone was and what they were up to, and he kept in contact on a regular basis) and become the norm. Their phone calls had begun to be something that Billy _relied_ on. 

And Billy had no desire whatsoever to acknowledge this reliance between the two of them. 

This wasn't what he wanted, this _relationship_. He didn't want to embark on some long distance relationship with one of his best friends, he didn't want to face the rest of the fellowship and have to say those inevitable, hideously embarrassing words - _yeah, so, right, Sean and I? We're, like, together_ \- and have to listen to their catcalls and their claps on the back and their friendly insults. He didn't want any of it. He didn't want it to go the other way, and for them all to stand there in stunned silence and disapproval. He just wanted everything to be _easy_. 

"It's late, Sean." Billy said finally. 

"I know." Sean sounded forlorn, and something tugged at Billy, deep inside. Sometimes he hated himself for being such a bastard. 

"Are you alright?" Billy asked, finally, against all his better judgements. Billy was inexplicably pissed off, but still... he couldn't ignore the fact that he cared about Sean, and that Sean hadn't been himself the whole day. Sean hadn't been himself ever since he and Elijah had turned up at the airport to pick him up last night, and Billy had tried very, very hard to ignore that reality. He hadn't been himself at the restaurant that evening, where they'd all gathered to drink wine and eat good food. 

Viggo had chosen the establishment, and a good choice he'd made too. None of that low sodium, low carbs shit that Billy tried his very best to avoid every single time he arrived in the States. They'd even had a terrace where no one had complained if they lit up - no one even gave them a second glance as he, Orlando, Lij, Viggo and Hannah had all passed round the lighter and the cigarettes. Liv had pulled her chair up to the doors and sat just inside, looking despairingly at the cigarettes and patting her belly. The others had waved and smiled, but Sean had pulled his chair back inside, sitting down next to her. His hand had rested softly on her arm, and he'd asked her all about her pregnancy to take her mind off the fact that she'd given up smoking the moment she'd found out she was pregnant. 

It wasn't always Sean who realised that other people might be having a hard time, but it was always Sean who battled his way on in regardless, bludgeoning down people's resistance by continually asking questions and poking until his subject relented and gave in, pouring out their troubles. Billy may have been laughing along with the others as Elijah recounted his latest phone call from Dom (who had been ringing them all up telling them he was having the time of his life in Hawaii, and then ringing them all back to tell them that he missed his pets and _them_ ) but all the time he was leaning back in his chair and trying to listen to Liv and Sean's conversation. Liv was desperately admitting how much she missed smoking, how guilty she felt even admitting that out loud, and Sean had smiled and gone to get her another orange juice from the bar. He'd sat back down in his chair and told Liv that craving what you couldn't have didn't make her any less of a person. It made you stronger, he told her, stronger to be able to work through that craving and come out the other side. He'd desperately wanted to lose weight in New Zealand, he told her in a low voice, and it had been _hard_ to keep the weight on. But some things you have to do for other people. And Liv had laughed and wondered out loud if every piece of advice any of them ever gave again would have a New Zealand analogy attached. And Billy had smiled in spite of himself. 

Because... Sean was always going to be like this. He was always going to be _Sean_. The habitual checker, whose first thought was not himself but everyone else's welfare; Sean who wanted to check out that everyone was alright, that everyone was ok, that nothing important was left unspoken. 

And therein lay their greatest problem; Billy was from Scotland. A place where not only did they maintain that reticence was next to godliness, but they tended to laugh at people who wanted to share their emotions. Sean and him were on entirely different wavelengths. 

 

This would never work. 

"Do you want to go out and get a cup of coffee?" Sean asked. 

Billy glanced at the clock on the wall opposite. "It's almost midnight, Sean," he said, and he fiddled with the knot of his towel around his waist. He was **not** under any circumstances admitting that the soft sound of Sean's American accent was causing warm and unmentionable responses under his towel. He fell back onto the bed, swinging his legs up onto the duvet, and wiggled his toes. His stubbed toe still hurt, unsurprisingly. Shit, it had been such a crap day. 

It hadn't just been phone calls. He might not be able to remember when he and Sean had started ringing each other so much, but he was relatively sure he could pinpoint the exact time point that their _emails_ became regular, daily occurrences. Admittedly he had Orlando ( _Orlando!_ ) to thank for that - Orlando had become an internet whiz kid over night and blustered in, dividing his inbox into way too many files and folders. All of Sean's emails were stored (cunningly) in a folder entitled 'Astin'. 

It had been a gradual process, coming together over weeks and months, this melding of Billy and Sean into each other's daily lives. The only thing Billy was sure of was that Sean was the only reason Billy had upped sticks and flown half way around the world when he blatantly should have been back in Scotland sorting his income tax returns out and auditioning for the Royal Shakespeare Company. 

Billy _knew_ this trip had only come about because he'd wanted to see Sean - to actually _see_ him instead of communicating via the medium of a phone line. He also knew that he'd been nothing but rude the whole damned time, ignoring Sean and spurning Sean's gentle overtures towards him, pushing him away because he was so fucking ashamed of the way he felt. 

"If you're tired..." Sean said, quietly. 

Billy blushed. He'd waited _weeks_ to come over here and see Sean. Every single conversation they'd had in the intervening period between booking tickets and actually getting on that damn plane had alluded to this moment, this being together on the same continent for a change. Billy ran his fingers through his wet hair and sighed. "No... Sean... I..." he sighed again, and took a deep breath. "Do you know a place where we can meet?"

"There's a diner over on fifty-fourth. It's not that far from the hotel." Sean said eventually. 

"Ok." Billy nodded. He knew the one Sean meant, Lij had pointed it out the previous evening on the interminable drive back from the airport. Apparently they did a mean cherry pie. 

They didn't say goodbye. Billy never did. Sean always did. Billy hung up and leaned back against the pillow. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. He was such a fucking coward. How the hell did he get himself into these messes? How come he didn't know how to say no? The last thing he wanted to do was to go and meet Astin alone. Billy had carefully engineered the whole trip so far so that he didn't have to be alone with Sean - he'd given his flight details to Elijah as well, arranged with Viggo that they'd all go out. The taxi back from the restaurant had been a technical oversight, but the shared journey had taken less than five minutes, and Sean wasn't the kind of guy to want to get hot and heavy in the back of a cab. Luckily. But somewhere under the blurry, half-arsed brick wall that Billy was hurriedly building around himself, Billy knew that sometime he'd have deal with this _thing_ between him and Sean. It might as well be now. Billy couldn't do other than agree to meet him. 

And it had nothing whatsoever to do with the pounding of the blood through his veins and the gentle pressure of his erection against the towel.

**Two**

Billy pushed his way into the diner, wearing his jeans, a crumpled t-shirt and an oversized _University of Glasgow_ hoody. He'd deliberately dressed down, pulling his hood up through the rain as he made his way through the virtually deserted streets. And they said the UK had bad weather? It hadn't bloody stopped pissing it down since he'd landed. Well, apart from that twelve hour period when they'd had nothing but blazing sun, but Billy wasn't really in the mood to talk about the sun. 

He spotted Sean straight away - in the back corner under a huge framed print of some baseball game. Probably some great, famous catch, Billy told himself. He knew virtually nothing about baseball - unless primary school rounders counted as a good background. He stuffed his hands deep inside his pockets, maintaining to himself that it was because his hands were cold, and that it was definitely _not_ because he was indulging himself in some good old fashioned slightly-shaky nervous hand thing. 

"Astin," Billy said, sinking into the booth opposite Sean. 

Sean wasn't wearing the same clothes he'd worn to the restaurant either. He was wearing a navy sweater and jeans; his jacket lying on the seat beside him. There was a pot of coffee and a couple of mugs on the table. 

"Billy." Sean smiled - although to Billy, who knew Sean, it seemed strained - and held his hand out. "I ordered."

Ever the politician, Billy thought, yet another reason why this would never work and was a shit idea. Yet he shook Sean's hand and held the grip a moment longer than he should have, not wanting to let go and figure out what the hell was going on.

Sean's hand was warm against his own, the grip light. Billy knew that his own palm was clammy, his hand sweaty. He didn't want to look at Sean; didn't want to look across and see those eyes staring back at him. Billy knew how Sean would look, all questioning and just overflowing with warmth for him. For Billy. Billy couldn't cope with that - looking and seeing how Sean saw him - as someone worthy of him investing attention and time. Why couldn't Sean see that they weren't supposed to be together, Billy and Sean? That they were just too different? That they were from two different places, as distinct and separate as light and dark. 

Billy sank down into the booth and let go of Sean's hand. He stared down at the table top - that fake marble-esque pebble dash that was indicative of diners worldwide. He wished he'd never come. This was too hard. Why couldn't things just be _easy_?

"I got us coffee," Sean said unnecessarily, after a moment. He passed Billy a mug, and smiled. "It's good to see you," he said finally. 

"You've just got away from seeing me for three hours," Billy told him, a touch desperately. 

"But now it's just the two of us," Sean told him. For a moment he didn't move, just stared across at Billy until Billy blushed and looked away. Sean poured him some of the coffee and nudged it across the table to him. 

Billy ignored it. "Yes," he said, somewhat haphazardly. 

Sean looked across at him. He looked exhausted, Billy realised, with pale shadows ghosting under his eyes. 

"Which _was_ why you came over here, wasn't it?" Sean was pushing him, Billy knew. 

Not that Billy could blame him. He was right, after all. Billy had even told him so on the phone a couple of weeks ago. 

Billy wanted to tell him _no_ , he came over here to see _everyone_ , but the lie caught in his throat, and he reached for his coffee just to give his hands something to do. 

Except that Sean reached over the table at the same time and caught Billy's hand in his own, stilling Billy's jumpy movement with a steady hand. Before Billy knew what the hell was going on, Sean was holding Billy's hand across the table.

Billy blinked. Damn, this guy was _good_. He may not have the grace and sophistication of, say, Orlando - who flirted and insinuated and bought cocktails - but Sean had a sense of self-belief and the courage of conviction that far outweighed Orlando's techniques. Sean _knew_ that they had feelings for each other - he'd been present at the same phone calls and the same emails that Billy had, for heaven's sake, and if even Billy was aware of how they felt about each other, then Sean fucking had to be. Sean knew that Billy fancied him, and he knew it as surely as he knew that the seasons would change and the tide would come in and go out again, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let a little thing like Billy's blatant denial faze him. 

"I'm really glad you came over," Sean told him, smiling softly. "It's good to finally get to see you face to face, instead of just hearing you over the phone or those stupid emails."

Billy hadn't pulled away from Sean's hand, and the knowledge was really pissing him off. He was staring down at their hands, seeing Sean's hand, seeing his, seeing the entwined fingers. He wondered if he stared long enough at them, if he would lose track of whose fingers were whose. "I ignored my phone bill," Billy said eventually, pulling his attention away from their hands and back to Sean's face. The fucker was _smiling_ at him. "I didn't even open it."

"If it was anything like mine," Sean grinned, "I think the best bet is to have a drink before looking at it."

Billy narrowed his eyes, "You - _Sean_ Astin¬ - are advocating alcohol to deal with household bills?" he smiled, against his better judgement. He still wasn't pulling away from Sean's touch. A vein pulsed in his throat. His stomach jumped. 

Sean shrugged, smiling, and his thumb stroked Billy's palm. "Only before opening an $1800 phone bill."

Billy swallowed. His breath hitched in his throat as Sean continued to gently stroke his palm. This wasn't going how he'd expected it to. He hadn't expected sitting here with Sean to be so... so _engaging_. "1800 dollars?" he said finally, "Just phoning me?"

Sean wrinkled his nose. Billy knew that meant he was battling with whether to tell the truth or just to say what he knew Billy wanted to hear. Sean sighed. "Not just to you. The kids and work as well."

"Oh, right." Billy was strangely disappointed. He stared down into his coffee.

But Sean must have spent too long talking to Billy over the last few months, because he just smiled and reached over to cup Billy's chin with his spare hand. He nudged Billy's attention back to Sean's face. "But yes," he said, and Billy's breath faltered under Sean's unwavering stare, "the majority were international calls to you." 

Considering Billy was in no way considering undertaking any form of romantic entanglement with Sean, his reaction to Sean telling him this was something of a surprise. 

He laughed. He couldn't help it, the laughter catching in his throat as he stared across at Sean. His mouth curled into a smile. "Sean... I..." He didn't know what he wanted to say. Only that he hadn't expected this to be so difficult. He blinked as Sean let go of his chin, watching as Sean's hand slid under the table to rest gently on Billy's knee. 

"Have you any idea how long I've been waiting to touch you?" Sean asked conversationally. His palm lay still against Billy's knee. 

Billy wondered haphazardly if he'd been hard when he sat down. 

"I thought it was what you wanted too, Billy." Sean pulled his hands away from Billy's touch. Both Billy's hand and his knee felt suddenly bereft. 

Billy's head shot up. No. Sean wasn't accusing him of anything. He just looked... sad. 

Billy swallowed a sigh. His chest _hurt_ , seeing Sean's face like that; sad and taut and shuttered. "I just... I don't know. Sean..." he said finally, and his fingers itched to touch Sean's once more. "I just don't know what's going on any more." How could he explain how fucking angry he was at himself for putting himself in this fucking stupid position? There was nothing more he wanted than to take Sean home right this instant and get him naked and make him cry out with Billy's name. But... he just couldn't. Because Billy didn't love Sean. He just... _couldn't_ be in love with Sean. It wasn't the way things were supposed to go. 

Sean smiled. "I know," he said, and ran his hand across his jaw, and all of a sudden he looked fucking exhausted. 

Billy's mind whirled. He itched - ok, he fucking _ached_ to touch Sean - to touch, to press, to relieve himself of this _need_. But this just wasn't supposed to be the way things went. Things might have changed over the past few months - he might have become hyper-aware of what time it was on the West Coast - but they hadn't changed to the extent that Billy was actually seriously contemplating a relationship with one of his best friends. 

So what if Billy had never really bothered to grasp the time difference when it was just Lij and Dom and Vig and the others. So what if it had never really bothered him if he'd accidentally rung them at three thirty in the morning and they'd either snored or sworn down the phone at him. He'd just grinned and laughed when he'd rung the States from the comfort of his own bed and he'd found Lij hyper and out on the town and they'd exchanged unpleasantries ( _fuck you_ and _get stuffed_ and _stop bothering me you freak_ \- which basically all meant the same thing - _don't ever stop ringing me at thoroughly inconvenient times_ ).

Who cared if Billy could now work in LA time as easily as he worked in Glasgow time. 

Billy knew that if he wanted to send Sean an email saying _good morning_ he had to send it by mid-afternoon [Glasgow: 16:00, LA: 08.00]. Billy knew that if he was working long days, then in order for Billy to read his email when he fell in from the biting Scottish evening, Sean had to email him mid-morning [Glasgow: 18.30, LA: 10:30]. When Billy finished at the theatre, collapsing in a heap somewhere on his bed, Sean rang him from the sultry shadows of the Californian afternoon [Glasgow: 23.00, LA: 15.00]. Billy left Sean drunken messages on the way back from the pub in the wee small hours of the morning [Glasgow: 02.00, LA: 18.00] and if Sean answered, he'd reprimand Billy for being drunk and alone and Billy would tell him off for sitting down to another steamed vegetable combination all by himself. And sometimes, on the rare occasions when Sean would work his way down a bottle of finest malt (Billy's influence shining through), he'd ring Billy with words that were hazy and slurred but whose sentiment was immaculate and exquisite and written in words a hundred metres tall if only Billy was there to see them [Glasgow: 06.00, LA: 22.00]. And Billy would roll over in bed and try to figure out why Sean was drinking alone in his quiet LA house. 

Billy was sick of battling with calculations. He was sick of adding and subtracting eight and trying to work out how British Summertime would stick a spanner in the works. He was tired of having to factor in the possibility that Sean might be in meetings in New York or that Billy might be away in Tenerife with Maggie and the kids. He was sick to death of one of them always being tired, one of them always having to keep an eye on the clock because they had an appointment to get to. He was fucking sick of stupid conversations full of pregnant pauses when neither of them talked about their ex's or mentioned that they were rattling around in their respective houses as lonely as could be. He was sick of not being able to distinguish between what he _thought_ he wanted and what he _should_ want. He was sick of missing Sean so much it hurt. 

He and Sean didn't talk about how things had changed. They didn't talk about how Billy read Sean's horoscope every morning in the paper as automatically as he read his own. They didn't talk about how Billy dropped appointments and rearranged meeting his friends because he knew that Sean would be ringing. They never mentioned any of that - instead they talked about stressful days and complicated but amicable custody arrangements. They talked about Billy maybe coming out to the States to work (although Sean hadn't been able to stop laughing when Billy called in a favour from Brad Dourif and got an audition for a couple of days in the Chucky recording booth).They talked about New Zealand, reminiscing and telling tales they'd both heard a million times before - and although they never mentioned it explicitly, neither of them could keep the wistful note of their voices when they thought about all that time they'd just _wasted_. 

It was Billy who had first suggested coming to the States (the fucking _irony_ , Billy thought, as his hands twisted in his lap and he wondered why he'd bothered coming half way across the world specifically to avoid the one person he'd come to see) and Sean hadn't bothered to hide his anticipation, saying _that's great_ and _wonderful_ and _when_?

And Billy didn't really know when those first frissons of doubt had hit him, but he'd booked a room in that stupid, crappy hotel the same evening as he booked his air fare, so it must have been a close-run thing between conception and execution. He'd deliberately and purposefully sidestepped the fact that Sean had wanted Billy to stay with him. Which basically meant that Billy had been deceiving Sean for weeks now, through all those phone calls and emails, and the occasional bizarre fax. Why couldn't he have just said it earlier? Why couldn't Billy have just admitted to Sean that this was a crazy idea that would never work, and not to bother hurting each other just to reach that self-same conclusion a few weeks or months down the line. 

Billy and Sean were not supposed to be together. The End. 

"Will you come back to my house?" Sean said finally, and he was doing that _Sean_ thing again, the one that meant he was being all direct and making eye contact and making it really difficult for Billy to say no. Regardless of how much he felt he needed to. It was made even more difficult because Sean fucking _yawned_ , and it was suddenly all about dark lashes against pale skin. And Billy couldn't help it; he had the overwhelming, uncomfortable desire to rest his face against Sean's, cheek against cheek, and feel those lashes flutter shut against his skin. "Sorry," Sean yawned again, his voice muffled from behind his hand. For a hobbit-sized man, Sean had big hands, ones that Billy had always secretly envied. Dom's hands were the most famous; tapered fingers and soft palms that seemed to bleed coloured inks. Lij's were scuffed and bitten and nervous, fiddling and reaching and clutching. Billy's were just, well, _hands_ , whilst Sean's were big and soft and gentle. Billy wanted to reach over and touch one of them. "It's just..." Sean started, and he blushed, and Billy blinked, "I'm not really sleeping, and..." he tailed off, his gaze falling down into his lap, "it seems I can't get to sleep without talking to you first," he said finally, and his eyes crept up Billy's body, coming to rest on Billy's face. There was no sign of the embarrassment he'd shown just moments before. "Go on then," he said eventually, "laugh and tell me to piss off home, or whatever it is you'd say."

Billy swallowed. "I'm not laughing," he said quietly. "I don't really think any of this is funny."

"Why did you come here, Billy?" Sean asked, blinking softly. 

"To the diner?" Billy shook his head. "Because you rang me up and asked me to. I was going to go to bed." That impractical, impossible and unfair anger was creeping back through him again, twisting in his veins and clenching in his fists. It was happening already, this awkwardness, this destruction of what they had. This was what he didn't want. 

"No..." Sean stared across the table at him. "Why did you come to America?"

_Because you asked me to_ , Billy wanted to say. But it just wasn't true. Billy had been the one to suggest it, he'd brought the idea up, he'd made a brief and vague allusion to appropriate dates when Sean would have a bit of free time. He'd been the one who had wanted to formalise and recognise this change in their friendship face to face. Billy was suddenly very, very tired. "I don't know." he said eventually. "To see you, I suppose." He couldn't, couldn't look across at Sean. 

"You look exhausted." Sean said after a moment. 

"Probably jetlag." Billy took a long gulp of coffee, and rubbed his eyes. He was tired. Too tired to even try and figure out what time it was supposed to be in Glasgow, how many hours of sleep he'd missed in the last few days. Too tired to try and hide the desire he _knew_ was in his eyes; too tired to properly quell those fantasies of slowly taking Sean's clothes off, button by button, and licking and nibbling and biting his way down Sean's body. Fucking hell, Billy had it bad. He had to get over this, this _thing_ , before it escalated out of control. Billy didn't love Sean. He _didn't_. 

"You can sleep in the guest room if you want." Sean was wheedling now, Billy knew. They knew each other too well, unfortunately. Sean knew that the best time to catch Billy with his guard down was when he was tired; Billy knew that Sean sometimes genuinely had problems sleeping and probably did rely heavily on Billy's voice to send him to sleep. Billy couldn't work out whether that was a back-handed compliment or not. 

"Ok." Billy said finally, fighting the urge to drag Sean out of the booth and into the nearest darkened corner and kiss him until he could kiss no more. 

"Ok?" Sean asked, and Billy was distressed to find himself nodding, and standing up.

Sean left a pile of bills on the table - far more than 15%, Billy noted, with that innate Scottish thing of involuntarily noting other people's generosity or stinginess. Sean edged his way out of the booth and he cupped Billy's elbow, steering him towards the door. Billy's stomach curled at the contact.

Billy _didn't_ love Sean. He didn't. He couldn't. 

Hailing a cab wasn't much like Billy had seen in the films. He'd wanted to come out of the diner and whistle for a cab like he'd seen on the TV (not that he'd admit to watching _Sex and the City_ , but, well, sometimes there wasn't that much on late at night when he was waiting for Sean to ring, it wasn't like he _liked_ it or anything), but instead they just jumped into the one that Sean had had waiting outside. 

"I wasn't sure that you'd come," Sean explained quietly, "so I paid him to hang around for a while."

And Billy had shrugged and had to stop his hands twisting into fists, because Sean was _right_. He'd dithered over whether to come for too long. Right up until that moment where he'd slipped in the booth opposite Sean, he'd wanted to bail. And then he only stayed because he didn't know how to leave. 

_Right_. 

Nothing to do with _wanting_ to spend time with Sean. Nothing to do with wanting to see him, to talk to him, to touch him. Billy sighed - he had to stop being such a fucking _coward_ \- and got into the back seat of the cab beside Sean. 

It was only a five minute cab ride. It couldn't be that hard, could it? Billy stared out of the window into the dark LA night. Across the other side of the cab, with as much distance as they could possibly have between the two of them, Sean stared out of the other window. 

Something electric crackled between them on the air, and Billy fought the urge to slide over the seats and curl his fingers through Sean's hair and to kiss him. This was what it was all building up to, wasn't it? The _kiss_. All these weeks, all those long nights of phone calls, emails full of ridiculous filler (Billy typing up his shopping list, highlighting the important things - beer, cheese, bottles of wine; Sean sending it back, new and improved, with the important things highlighted - brown rice, organic tomatoes, a good bottle of finest malt) - they'd all been leading up to this. Those nights where they rambled on and on about their previous relationships - never talking about their ex girlfriends or ex wives, merely pointing out their own faults when it came to commitment and relationships. They had all been preparation. For _this_. 

The taxi pulled up outside Sean's house, but it was a full thirty seconds before either Sean or Billy made the move to pay. Billy swallowed, his hands in his lap. Sean didn't look at him.

"Nine dollars," the taxi driver repeated, and Sean started with a jump. 

"Sorry," Sean apologised, and handed over $20 with a bemused smile. 

They watched the taillights disappear with a certain sense of fatality. 

Billy - knowing what he had to do, knowing what he had to say to make this better - Billy was begging the cab to come back. 

"It's not coming back you know," Sean said eventually, as he unlocked his gates, "but you can call another one from my cell, if you want."

"Sean..." Billy said. This wasn't how it was supposed to be going. 

"No one is forcing you to be here." Sean smiled, his lips curling up at the edges. It looked as if it might hurt. 

"I... no." Billy said finally, his voice quiet. "I'm here now. Let's go inside." Billy followed him inside and waited for Sean to lock the gates behind them. 

Billy took a deep breath. Followed Sean up the steps and in the front door. 

Billy kissed Sean as Sean was switching the lights on in the hallway and moving into the kitchen. Billy just unclenched his fists, sighed and stepped forward, resting his hand gently in the small of Sean's back. Sean stilled and Billy slipped in between him and the kitchen, his eyes flicking from Sean's lips to his eyes for a brief second before Billy leaned forward and kissed him, his lips dry against Sean's; Sean's mouth open as if to question Billy.

That first kiss had been a surprise. Billy had pressed his hand against Sean's back, felt the flex and heat of his skin beneath his fingers, and he'd just... kissed him. He hadn't meant to, he'd meant to say _I'm sorry_ , and _I've been such an idiot_ , and _forgive me_. And it was over before it had begun, really, with Billy pulling away and staring at Sean with wide eyes. 

"I thought..." Sean started. He licked his lips, and slipped his hand round Billy's waist. "Never mind."

"I'm sorry," Billy mumbled, and he did what he'd been wanting to do ever since he'd met Sean in the diner; his hand crept up to cup Sean's face. There was the beginning of stubble beneath his fingers. 

"I don't think it matters now," Sean said, matter of factly, pressing his forehead to Billy's. His breath was warm against Billy's cheek. It smelt like coffee. 

Billy couldn't tell who initiated the next kiss. Only that one second they were standing, foreheads touching, and the next second they were kissing, Billy's mouth pressed up against Sean's, and Sean's tongue was sliding along his lip, slipping inside his mouth, and Billy was groaning against him. There was a desperation in the kiss that Billy just couldn't describe or explain. 

For so long, Billy had been telling himself that Sean was just a friend; that the way Sean made him feel was just like a best friend would. Billy had been telling himself for so long now that this _want_ , this _need_ he felt towards Sean was just displaced friendship. It took Billy right up until this moment to realise that he couldn't deny it any longer. 

He'd slowly, heavily, solidly, gracelessly fallen in love with Sean.

**Three**

Billy was so fucking angry with himself. 

It seemed like he might well be in love with Sean. Ok, so there was little 'might' about it. He loved Sean. He _loved_ him. Billy just couldn't get his head around it; he was in love with Sean.

Billy didn't particularly _want_ to be in love with him; accepting that he had those feelings about Sean could only ever be an acceptance of further unnecessary heartache somewhere down the line. Getting hurt was inevitable. 

And Billy was a man who wasn't keen on suffering any unnecessary pain. 

Furthermore, no man in his right mind would start up a relationship with a divorced man with two children who lived a very busy life on the other side of the world. Which only meant one thing, Billy realised with a start: 

_Billy sure as hell wasn't anywhere close to sane._

Because being _there_ , in Sean's hallway as the light shifted and fragmented in the late night gloom, just being there was the closest thing to _right_ Billy had felt in a long, long time. And Billy might not want to admit that standing there and kissing Sean was the cause of the jumping in his stomach and his sweating palms, but all the same, it was true. 

The kiss had started off angry and unsure and desperate, Billy's hand flat in the small of Sean's back. But then his hand had crept up the front of Sean's sweater, palm coming to rest flat over Sean's breastbone, the undulating thump of his heartbeat beneath Billy's touch. Sean's fingers had twisted in the short hair in the curve of Billy's neck, his thumb ghosting over that hollow between neck and shoulder. And Billy had gasped against Sean's mouth as Sean's other hand came to rest in the small of Billy's back, tugging Billy even closer, their bodies pressing together as they kissed. 

Billy hadn't imagined it would be like this. In those rare moments where he had allowed himself to think of the possibility of (maybe) one day kissing Sean, it had _never_ been like this. Kissing Sean had always been shrouded in unnatural light - chaste, somehow; a wooden series of events climaxing in release and uncomfortable realisations. Billy shuddered at the thought. Their first kiss wasn't supposed to be in Sean's hallway, with the light (from the one lamp Sean had managed to switch on) casting flickering golden shadows across their skin. Billy wasn't supposed to be backed up against the doorframe, his breath catching in his throat as Sean's tongue slid inside his mouth, tasting coffee and mints, and then - _Christ_ \- Sean sure as hell wasn't supposed to be catching Billy's bottom lip between his teeth, nipping gently and smiling as Billy groaned against his mouth. 

Kissing Sean wasn't supposed to leave either of them breathless and red-faced in the shadowed half-light as they pulled away from each other, gasping for breath and eyeing one another with wide, soft eyes. 

"Any idea how long I've been wanting to do that, Billy?" Sean asked, a moment later. His arms curled around Billy's back, and he buried his head in Billy's neck as he spoke, the words slipslipsliding their way across Billy's cheek - warm and hot and sweet. 

Too sweet? Billy checked himself, angrily. Billy had had enough of letting _that_ part of his mind take charge. No more. At least...he'd been fighting this for so long, this attraction, this desire, this _love_. He was sick of fighting a constant battle with his subconscious and sick to death of that tight feeling across his chest (the one that tried to tell him he'd made the wrong decision every time he backed away from Sean). He needed to see whether this - him and Sean - was right or not. He needed to stop questioning for a bit. 

_Jesus_ , Billy thought, breathing in the gentle aroma of Sean's shampoo, _I'm such a bastard_. How could he keep doing this? Playing with Sean whilst he tried to figure out what it was he wanted; keeping Sean hanging now he _knew_ how he really felt. But just because he was in love with Sean didn't mean that being here and doing this was a good idea. All the same... Billy touched his reddened lips with one finger. Well-kissed, he thought, and his heart leapt. How long _had_ Sean been wanting to do that? Probably about as long as I have, Billy thought. He rested his chin on Sean's shoulder, shifting slightly - quietly - so that his nose nudged against Sean's neck and he could really breath Sean's scent in. He could already taste the gentle pervading smell of Sean's aftershave, that same musky aroma that slipped its way into Billy's dreams and always resulted in him waking up hard, reaching across the empty bed for someone who was never there. He kissed Sean's neck, and Sean hugged him harder, pressing him back against the doorjamb, his breath hot against Billy's neck. 

Just being this close to Sean was doing terrible things to Billy. For so long, Billy had tried to talk himself out of these feelings - this _desperation_ he felt whenever he thought of Sean, this desperate, desperate _need_ \- that just allowing himself the opportunity to stand here, chest pressed up against Sean, cheeks touching, bodies hot, was more than he could ever have let himself hope for. 

He _loved_ Sean. He fucking loved Sean. 

He shivered, the tiny, downy hairs on his arms and the back of his neck suddenly standing to attention. 

"Are you alright, Billy?" Sean said, pulling away a little so Billy could see his face. He looked so damned _concerned_ that Billy felt the pull of that irrational anger again, just for a moment, until he pushed it away into the dark recesses of his mind. 

"Yeah, I just... I dunno." Billy didn't meet Sean's gaze. Surely it was wrong that this - being held by _Sean_ \- could feel so right? That he could want it so badly that it actually hurt? "It's all a bit weird, don't you think?" 

Sean's hand crept up to cup Billy's chin, nudging Billy's gaze back to meet Sean's once more. "Bad weird, or good weird?" he asked, gently. He looked so worried, his brown eyes wide, his mouth taut, that Billy entirely forgot what he was going to say. His hand found Sean's cheek, and he could feel stubble brush against the sensitive skin of his palm. He wondered haphazardly if it was wrong to want to map Sean's skin with his fingers. 

"Too good weird." Billy admitted, with a smile. His thumb pressed minutely against the softer skin below Sean's eye, and he traced the soft lines of Sean's face, "Like, 'why have I been fighting this for so long' weird."

Sean's face relaxed, the lines crinkling at the edge of his eyes. "I thought you were going to say bad weird. I was just getting ready to man the barricades so you couldn't leave."

Billy laughed, his fingers trailing their way into Sean's hair and curling around the shorter ones at the nape of his neck. He leaned in for a kiss, his mouth finding Sean's once more. And as they kissed, (Billy's tongue sweeping Sean's bottom lip before sliding into Sean's mouth) Billy wondered whether he'd always been an idiot, or whether it was _just_ where Sean was involved. All this time, through all of those phone calls (and emails and letters and that one strange fax), across all of those nights and weeks and months, Billy had been telling himself that he could just walk away at any time. He could just _stop_. That this relationship he'd been indulging in with Sean (this friendship that broke the previously tight boundaries of hobbits and elves and groups of men) was nothing more than a subtle migration and mutation of a previously established friendship, and was definitely not under any circumstances a _reliance_. But now it turned out that actually they'd been busy establishing a strong basis for an actual relationship, sending love letters and discovering habits and truths and foibles that you never cared enough to go into when someone was only one of your closest friends and nothing more. They'd actually been busy falling in love with each other all this time. When Billy had told Sean that he'd _gone down the shops today and bought a paper,_ he'd really meant _I'm falling in love with you and I can't stop_. If only Billy had noticed earlier, instead of keeping himself busy maintaining that his relationship with Sean was entirely ordinary. 

Which all led Billy to his next realisation:

_Kissing Sean was a bit like perfection_. 

Now _that_ was the sort of realisation that Billy wanted to be able to cope with. He kissed harder, his hands sneaking their way under Sean's sweater and feeling their way up the cotton of his t-shirt. Sean was clutching at Billy's waistband, and Sean was groaning "Billy" against Billy's mouth when Sean's mobile rang. 

They pulled apart reluctantly, Sean feeling his pockets for his phone. Billy was strangely cheered when he noticed that Sean's hands were shaking, and he sank down onto Sean's staircase - only for a rest, of course, (it was well after midnight, after all) and absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Billy was feeling a little wobbly himself. 

"It's Elijah," Sean told Billy as he found his phone in his jacket pocket, too polite to roll his eyes at the thoroughly unwelcome disturbance. "Lij," he said into the mouthpiece, "What's up?" 

Billy grinned as Sean shifted personalities, immediately taking charge of the call. 

Sean laughed at something Elijah said, then turned to face him on the stairs, "Billy, apparently you're not answering your cell," Sean told him, with a smile and a crinkle of his eyes. 

Billy shook his head. "My mobile's back at the hotel." No point in explaining that he'd forced himself to leave it there, to stave the temptation to ring Sean and tell him that he wasn't coming to meet him at the diner. To stave the temptation to call a cab and start running. His hands sweated against his knees, the denim rough against his palm. He shouldn't want to run, he told himself. Not just because he was fucking terrified, and certainly not just because it was one hell of a lifestyle change. Taking a deep breath, he looked up at Sean. Sean had the uncanny ability of being able to make him feel at home; Sean could stare across at Billy, not saying anything, just watching and waiting, and Billy would slowly begin to feel better. Sean could sit at one end of the phone line as the shadows danced in the dusty corners of Billy's house, just being quiet and patient and _there_ as Billy worked himself out. 

Sean's mouth curled into a smile as he caught Billy's eye. "Did you hear that, Lij? Billy left his cell back at the hotel. No... Billy's staying here tonight."

And really, it was that moment that changed things. 

Billy couldn't help but blush, unable to look across at Sean. Instead, he stared down at the toe of his trainer, and wondered where the scuff across the front came from. He was concentrating so hard on his shoe, in fact, that he didn't notice that Sean had moved until his light was blocked because Sean was leaning over the banister and resting his palm on Billy's shoulder as he spoke. 

Billy wasn't blushing because he thought Elijah might figure out what they were getting up to (or down to, depending on the mechanics of a situation that Billy had hardly let himself dream of, let alone prepare for the reality). He wasn't even blushing in case Elijah was still out with Viggo, or back at his flat with Hannah, or on the other line with Dom. He was blushing because - finally - it was going to happen. He and Sean were going to _happen_. Those fantasies that drugged his waking hours and dogged his dreams, they were slowly going to unravel into reality. He shivered in anticipation, his hand resting on Sean's leg through the banisters. He couldn't really contemplate _not_ touching Sean when he was so close. He couldn't really contemplate _not_ touching Sean even if he was a million miles away at the other side of the world. 

"No, Lij, there's no room for a little one... not this evening." Sean squeezed Billy's shoulder, and Billy found himself shifting, twisting upwards so he could meet Sean's warm gaze. And Billy couldn't help but smile because, fucking hell, he was _here_. In Sean's house, and it wasn't him on the other end of that phone call, wandering round his own empty house and talking to Sean in every room so it didn't seem so much like he was all alone. Was this what it had been like at Sean's end? Lamps glowing as the nights grew long, as Sean paced his house in his socks (he was toeing off his shoes as he spoke, the grip tightening on Billy's shoulders as his balance shifted), spilling his secrets in a voice that was low and gruff and _warm_. How had Billy not noticed? How had he not heard what Sean had been saying with every _hey_ and _I grilled trout tonight, with that recipe Viggo suggested_ and _I've heard about this great organisation I'm gonna get involved with, it's all about the kids_ and _I bought this CD today, it reminded me of you_? How had he missed that all the time Sean was telling him how he felt, with gestures and words and feelings so exquisite that it would take a real idiot to let them pass by, unnoticed. 

A real idiot, it seemed, or just Billy. 

"Lij, kid..." Sean grinned, "Do you ever stop talking?" And Billy found his arm sneaking through the banisters and curling around Sean's hip, fingers tight against the denim as they curved round to cup Sean's arse. " _Fuck_..." Sean breathed, (right down the phone, which caused Billy to laugh and Sean to blush, and Elijah to say something _loud_ right down the line) "That's _it,_ Lij, sleep tight," Sean managed, as Billy pulled his hand away, stood up, and pushed Sean gently back against the wall. As Sean flipped his phone shut and dropped it haphazardly on the hall table, Billy kissed Sean's neck, leaning in and pressing his whole body to Sean's, torso to torso, groin to groin. _Christ_. 

"Billy," Sean said, as Billy grinned and kissed Sean's jawbone. 

" _Billy_ ," Sean gasped, as Billy laughed and bit Sean's lip gently. 

" _ **Billy**_ ," Sean groaned, or would have done, if Billy hadn't smiled and pressed his mouth to Sean's, his tongue sliding into Sean's mouth and tasting coffee and mints. 

Billy was somewhat sick of words as a substitute for actual bodily contact; god knows they'd put up with enough foreplay. Months of phone calls and emails, right now he was all about interpreting _actions_. He was here, in LA, in Sean's hallway, body pressed up against Sean's, tongue curling its way into the corners of Sean's mouth and they were fucking kissing. He didn't really think there was anything that needed to be said right at the moment. There was certainly nothing he wanted to _think_ about. He didn't want to have to justify that bright curlicue of fear and desperation that clung to his stomach, the necessity he'd felt for so long just to be here, to be with Sean and to finally get some much needed release overriding his inner concerns. 

Except, it seemed, Sean still had something to say. Judging by the way he had just pulled away from the kiss, leaving Billy feeling hot and pink, slightly bereft and a bit of an idiot. 

Billy narrowed his eyes. "Sean?" he asked, uncertainly, his hands cupping Sean's biceps. He'd been working out, Billy realised; there were tense muscles beneath Billy's fingers. 

"Do you want some tea?" Sean asked, after a moment, his breath heavy and hard, looking anywhere but towards Billy. 

Billy raised his eyebrows. "Some _tea_?" 

Sean shrugged. And nodded. 

Billy wasn't sure he'd heard right.

Sean pulled away, ran his fingers tiredly through his hair and turned to face Billy. "Look," he said, and he sounded exhausted and tired out and Billy recognised the tone from a few early morning [Glasgow: 08.00, LA: 00.00] conversations. Billy loosened his grip on Sean's arms as Sean began to speak. "Look," he said again, "Ten minutes ago, you weren't even sure you wanted to stay." Sean smiled softly. "I saw how you were looking at that cab, begging it to stay. Don't try to tell me otherwise, Billy." he said, stopping Billy from saying anything with one well delivered _look_ , (and despite _everything_ , Billy was silenced and somewhat wary enough of Sean's measured voice to be glad he wasn't one of his kids after having misbehaved), "And while I can't think of anything I'd rather do than take you upstairs and kiss every last inch of you..." he took a deep breath, and Billy groaned in spite of himself, "I can't bear the idea of finding out half way through that you'd rather be back in your hotel room watching late night cable." He took a step away from Billy, running his fingers tiredly through his hair, and turned to make his way into the kitchen. 

Billy closed his eyes and rubbed his jaw. He took a deep breath and grabbed Sean's wrist, catching him just as he got through the kitchen doorway. The leather of Sean's watch strap dug into Billy's palm. "Sean," he said, and Sean reluctantly turned to face him. Sean was flushed, his cheeks pink and his lips red and roughened from kissing. Billy swallowed; this wasn't the way things were supposed to have turned out. It wasn't supposed to be _Sean_ stood in front of him, questioning their (for want of a better word) relationship; it wasn't supposed to be Sean's roughened breathing that caught in Billy's throat and twisted in his gut. And it sure as hell wasn't supposed to feel like _this_ ; like this moment was fucking important and it was down to Billy to make things right. Like Billy already knew what the hell he wanted, and all he had to do was convince Sean that he felt the same way. Billy had to prove to Sean that he wanted to be here; the thought made his belly twist and his palms sweat. Billy wasn't exactly famed for his emotional outbursts. He took a deep breath. "It wasn't that I didn't want to be here," he said finally, "I was just..." he trailed off. He swallowed, and forced himself to look directly at Sean. "At the risk of sounding like an idiot, Sean, I was scared." Billy blushed, but didn't take his eyes off Sean. "Pretty fucking terrified, actually," he admitted, slowly. Perspiration beaded across his forehead, and a pulse beat erratically in his throat. _You weren't that scared_ , a little voice told him from somewhere deep inside, _you didn't think you wanted this_. And Billy knew that to some extent it was true. He'd watched the slow fade of the taxi lights with a kind of heady desperation; a knowledge that with the departure of the taxi came the inevitable attempts at a conclusion to their own personal story. But, Billy told himself, he hadn't been wishing himself away from Sean during the taxi ride; he'd been imagining their kiss. Steadying his courage and grabbing hold with both hands. "I didn't want to leave," Billy said finally, willing Sean to believe him. 

Sean laughed softly, and edged closer towards Billy. "You think you're the only one who's nervous, Billy?" Sean asked, his breath warm on Billy's cheek. 

Billy's grip on Sean's wrist loosened. Sean took advantage, pulling away so that he held Billy's hand in his, their palms warm and damp against each other's in the stifling heat. _Christ_ , Billy thought haphazardly, as he followed the path of Sean's fingers with wide eyes, _it's hot in here_. 

"Because you're not, you know," Sean carried on conversationally, all the time his thumb grazing the sensitive skin at the centre of Billy's palm. "I can't remember the last time I was this scared."

Billy shook his head bemusedly, "But all this time I've been saying that we're just good friends," he said, pointedly ignoring the undignified splutter that came from Sean at this juncture, "and then here we are, and you got me _hard_ in that damned café just by holding my hand and talking,"

"I did?" Sean's breath hitched in his throat, and Billy shivered again. Sean's grip was suddenly remarkably strong. 

"Shut up," Billy smiled slowly, "I'm talking now, but _yes_ , you did, and then we got into that taxi and I wasn't so much scared as fucking desperate..."

"You looked pretty desperate," Sean admitted, his eyes darkening, "desperate to go back to the hotel and be as far away from me as you could be."

Billy raised an eyebrow. "Are you always this stupid?" he asked, blinking. 

"What?" Sean's brow furrowed, his mouth opening in protest. 

Billy rolled his eyes. "Here I am, trying my hardest to point out what you already know, that I'm completely in love with you, and all you can pay attention to is the fact I'm a complete idiot and that I've spent the whole weekend giving you mixed signals and driving you up the wall."

Sean smiled. Well, it wasn't just a smile. It was like his whole face - no, his whole _body_ \- opened up to Billy and his mouth crinkled, "You're in love with me?"

"Yeah, don't pretend like you didn't know." Billy shrugged as he pushed Sean back against the wall and stepped closer, pressing his body against Sean's, feeling the pressure of their mutual erections through the confining denim of their jeans. "I'm the only one allowed to pretend I don't have a clue what's going on around here, alright?" 

Sean opened his mouth again, and Billy held a finger up, effectively stopping Sean from saying anything else. He'd spent so sodding long fighting the gentle realisation that he had feelings for Sean, that just to accept them and _act_ on them was a blessed relief. Furthermore, he told himself (as he leaned in and pressed his cheek to Sean's), if he'd known how sexy it was seeing Sean speechless (eyes dark with desire, his tongue nervously licking pink lips,) then Billy would have hopped on a plane and pressed him back against his hall wall much earlier. Billy dared his subconscious to say otherwise. 

Sean wrapped his arms around Billy, feeling his way up the curve of Billy's spine with long fingers and tentative touches. His breath was hot against Billy's throat, and Billy wondered how it was that the temperature seemed to have shot up in the last few seconds. He pressed his lips to Sean's, his fingers finding their way into Sean's short hair. Kissing Sean was worth any amount of soul searching, he told himself, his tongue finding its way into the soft, sweet corners of Sean's mouth; actually being here and kissing him was worth all those months of elaborate conversations and intricate groundwork. It was worth those long nights where he hated himself for being hard and desperate, where he spoke to Sean and came off the phone unable to stop himself sliding his hand downwards, under the elasticated waistband of his boxers. And afterwards, when he lay sticky and sated and fucking _guilty_ , when he twisted under his duvet and tried to understand these strange compulsions that led him to crave the sound of Sean's voice, the desperation for his touch; none of that mattered now because he was _here_. He was in Sean's hallway, body pressed up against Sean's, and Sean was kissing him _back_. 

"You wanna go upstairs?" Sean asked a couple of minutes later, his voice low and gruff. His eyes were dark, his fingers burning their want into Billy's skin.

"Well, actually," Billy tried to smile, and desperate to quell that frisson of fear that crackled in his belly, he pushed his knee in between Sean's thighs. "I _am_ quite parched. Any chance of a glass of water first?"

_"Billy_." Sean's hands found their way under Billy's sweatshirt and t-shirt till they lay flat against warm, sensitive skin. He rested his forehead against Billy's for a second. "Look," he said finally, "risking sounding like a kid on prom night, we don't actually have to do anything. I'm tired, I want to go to bed with you." He sighed, pulling away so he could look directly at Billy. "I want to fall asleep with you actually _here_ instead of at the end of a phone line."

Billy blushed. "I hate sounding like some terrified kid," he admitted softly, clenching his fists. He closed his eyes as the skin across his knuckles whitened. Letting out a deep breath, he let his knee drop from against Sean's erection and leaned in against Sean's chest. He unclenched his fists, his arms sliding around Sean's back. "I _hate_ this," he whispered against the warm skin of Sean's neck.

"You think it's been a great big amusement park of fun for me?" Sean asked, his breath coming in gentle puffs against Billy's hair. "I've spent so long trying to figure out if being with you is the right thing for me and for my kids, I've forgotten what's it's like not to worry about _us_. And the stupidest thing? I didn't even know if there was an 'us' to be worried about." 

Billy's arms tightened around Sean, willing him not to pull away and tell Billy what a mistake embarking down this particular pathway had been. Billy remembered all those long days when the only thing that kept him going had been the fact that he knew he could go home and pick up the phone and call Sean. How he'd started getting up a few minutes earlier so he could schedule in enough time to switch his computer on and check his email before he had to leave the house for work. That gnawing disappointment in the pit of his belly on the odd occasion when he hadn't seen the familiar 'Astin _,_ S' at the top of his inbox. He remembered what it felt like to wander downstairs, sleepily rubbing his eyes and heading for the kitchen - mail in hand - only to find a letter from Sean in amongst the bills and the documents he never paid enough attention to. Letters from Sean were full of exposition and pages of introspection and analysis, and they always ended with him writing 'takecare' in his neat, precise handwriting (what sort of man had _neat_ handwriting? It was practically unheard of; Dom, for a start, had writing that resembled that of an illiterate six year old. Elijah wrote in spidery letters that crept and wandered across the page, curving round corners and exploding into capitals at the slightest hint of enthusiasm. Orlando wrote in biro on compliment slips, shrugging his shoulders when the others moaned at him. _We live in the technological age_ , he said, _check your email_. Billy didn't know whether to throttle him or hug him so tight he'd fall over. Billy's writing was periodically illegible, which made a translator necessary for all his letters to Sean, whilst Viggo's changed colour and nib as the mood took him). Billy realised how much Sean had insinuated himself into Billy's life over the last few months, and he knew now how little he wanted that assimilation and integration to stop. Damn, he _wanted_ Sean in his life. He sure as hell didn't want Sean pulling away and telling him that this was a stupid fricking idea and that he'd make the bed in the spare room up. "I want there to be an 'us'," Billy said quietly, abandoning all thoughts of maintaining a masculine silence on the subject of their relationship. Billy felt himself blush at the admittance. 

Sean didn't let him go. His hands were flat against the warm skin of Billy's back, his fingers making circular motions in the small of Billy's spine. His words came in soft breaths by Billy's ear, "Starting all over again isn't as easy as people think it's going to be, is it?"

Billy shook his head, burying his red face in Sean's neck, breathing him in. He hated feeling like this; desperate and horny and hard and vacillating between being so scared it made his legs shake and so angry he wanted to punch something. Deciding whether to be with Sean and trying to take into account all the possible repercussions was just too hard; working out what was right - both for themselves and for their friends and Sean's family (Billy's sister may be his closest family member, but she was an adult and Billy didn't seek approval for how he felt from her, he never had. It didn't mean he loved her any the less) - it was all just too complicated. There was no question as to whether he had feelings for Sean or not; Billy was all too well aware he was in love. Sean knew it too. Question was: would it be enough? 

Sean wasn't the sort of person you could just sleep with and then leave after one night. They'd known each other for too long, and too many people would be affected by the deterioration of the friendship between Billy and Sean if it all fell apart. So much more depended on the two of them staying friends - a whole intricate web of former hobbits and elves and men, for a start. Billy wasn't interested in involving Dom and Elijah and Orlando and the rest of their friends in the minutiae of Billy and Sean's complicated relationship. Furthermore, Billy wasn't the sort of person who could walk away from someone he was so completely in love with, either. He wasn't strong enough to put himself through that, and he cared too much about Sean to contemplate doing it to him as well. 

"Deciding to be with me isn't necessarily going to fuck everyone else up, you know," Sean continued, still rubbing Billy's back. It was enough to make Billy relax straight into Sean's bed, if he wasn't suddenly pissed off at Sean's uncanny ability to read his mind. "I've been thinking about this for weeks now," Sean admitted in a low voice, and Billy unclenched his fists, letting out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding in. "Falling in love with me doesn't necessarily spell the end of everyone else's friendships, either." Sean's voice was quiet, the words soft against Billy's ear. "They're old enough to look after themselves, without us worrying whether our possible roles as lynch pins might hypothetically be threatened in the future."

Billy couldn't help but smile at Sean's quiet indignation and the thought of himself as a central, unifying figure in the haphazard, complicated friendships that strained across oceans in the wake of the LOTR filming. He pressed his lips to Sean's neck, still slightly unnerved by Sean's proximity. Billy wondered if he'd forever associate the smell of oranges and warm lamplight with this particular moment; with Sean and him pressed up against the wall. With the realisation that he was in love. 

"Kids are stronger than we normally give them credit for, as well," Sean continued, no doubt thinking of the more complicated aspects of his own childhood that he'd brought up on more than one occasion in the shadowy dusk of their long conversations: the strain his mother's illness had put them all under at times and his inner turmoil regarding his real father amongst other things. Billy thought of his own childhood, and how he'd coped during the more difficult periods, about how he'd come out the other side and felt the warmth of the sun after being trapped in the dark for so long. 

"No one's disputing how much you love your kids," Billy told Sean, his fingers shifting and crawling their way up and under Sean's shirt, reassuring. 

"I know." Sean sighed, shifting slightly. He pulled away, his eyes searching Billy's. For what? Billy was curious, but he stood still, swallowing loudly. "Billy -" Sean stopped. 

_This was it_. Billy froze. Sweat prickled up his spine. _The moment_. When Sean told him it wasn't going to work out. Billy was shocked by how much he _did_ want this to work between him and Sean. Because he really, really did. The intensity of the waves of emotions were scaring him; he _needed_ Sean like he couldn't remember needing anyone else before. Sean had slipped so far into his subconscious that Billy couldn't remember what it felt like to be alone inside. They might have been fooling around with phone calls, pretending they were just friends, but they hadn't been 'just friends' for a very long time. They'd been together for weeks now, merging and becoming one as the phone line crackled and Billy slipped further and further into a relationship he couldn't even remember starting. He couldn't take his eyes off Sean, his throat suddenly dry. 

"My kids." Sean said finally. "I love my children," he continued, and Billy's adam's apple bobbed in his throat. _Make it quick_ , Billy thought, something shattering inside of him. _Just say it_. 

"I love you," Sean continued, and Billy allowed himself the possibility of hope, "but my kids come first. I'm not willing to compromise and make this some casual fling; it would hurt them - and me - too much if you were drifting in and out of my life. I want _you_ , but if you don't think you wanna be with me, if you need an out, Billy, here it is." Sean looked across at Billy, and he looked pale and tired in the gloom, hope slowly dying in his eyes. "I know you're scared, Billy, and I don't care. Fear I can deal with. We can get past that. But if you know you don't want to do this, then please, I'm begging you, don't let this go any further." 

_Oh god._ Sean looked so despondent standing there, desperate and tired and suddenly every inch of every one of his years, and Billy suddenly didn't feel the cloying need to think the decision over anymore. He gulped, took one step forward and pressed himself to Sean, his arms sliding around Sean's back in one fluid movement. "I thought you were going to tell me you didn't think it would work between us," he said, his voice wavering slightly as he ran his fingers through Sean's short hair. Sean's hands were already pressing into Billy's spine, holding Billy tight against his chest. 

"Does this mean you've made your choice then?" Sean asked quietly, his hands finding their way round to Billy's chest, soft and exploring against his rib cage. "Because - if you'll have me - I've made mine."

Billy swallowed, his stomach flexing and contracting under Sean's meandering touch. Sometimes it was hard to find the words, Billy realised; sometimes it was just too hard to vocalise sentiments. Sometimes you just had to make a good a job of it as you could, regardless of how ridiculous you sounded, despite the fact it made you angry to recognise your own deficit when it came to talking about emotions. Billy squared his shoulders and kissed Sean so briefly it was hardly there. He left Sean with a barely opened mouth and a furrowed brow, before pulling away from Sean's exploration of his torso and grabbing hold of Sean's hand with a sweaty palm. "I've thought about this so much," Billy admitted hurriedly, shivering and gasping as Sean reached for him once more, his thumb grazing Billy's belly button, "and I've gone over every possibility, over and over and over, and I've been so angry that it's been so fucking difficult just for us to get this far. I've been so annoyed I've wanted to hurt something - or someone." Billy stopped, his cheeks burning with embarrassment at the combined inevitability and absurdity of his statement. Sean pressed a kiss to Billy's temple, his eyes warm and dark. "Half the time I don't know what the hell I'm feeling," Billy went on. "I'm crap in the mornings and I never put my dirty socks in the washing basket. I leave half empty bowls of cereal on the side and I have weekends like this, when I ignore you and treat you like someone I hardly know rather than someone I _love,_ but I -" he swallowed, "I've never met anyone as honest as you before." He stopped, blinking and staring at Sean with a confused look in his eyes. "You just... say what you feel."

Sean shrugged lightly, his eyes guarded. Waiting. 

"I don't need an out," Billy said hurriedly, ignoring the twisting feeling in his gut. "I don't need one and I don't want one. I dunno." He stopped. "I'm not good at saying what I feel," he admitted, feeling stupid and like he was a million light years away from Sean. Was this a stupid idea? Were they just too far apart - mentally and physically - to work? 

He stole a glance at Sean. He blinked, watching as Sean's face creased up into a smile that crinkled and melted at his eyes. Billy was faced with the realisation that sometimes it wasn't so much the words that mattered, but the sentiment behind them. Something deep inside of him flickered, a last bastion of heat in a desperate man. Maybe they could understand each other, even if they were speaking practically different languages at times. Billy grinned in response to Sean's obvious delight. 

"You sure?" Sean asked, a moment later, his mouth mere breaths away from Billy's. 

"I'm sure," Billy told him, ignoring the niggling doubts in his belly, leaning across and kissing him. Billy kissed not like someone who was resigned to his fate, but like someone who had shaped their own future out of the haggard remains of their past. He kissed because he _wanted to_. Not because he wanted to quell those last troublesome worries, the ones that plagued his daydreams and shortened his sleep.

Sean smiled as he pulled away a few moments later, his mouth red and wide. "I'm really tired," he said finally, reddening. 

Billy laughed, stepping closer and pulling Sean near for one last kiss. His fingers caught in Sean's t-shirt. "Come on then. Let's go to bed." He remembered how angry he'd felt a couple of hours earlier; the twist in his gut and the fire that burnt in his belly whenever he'd thought about what Sean expected - _wanted_ \- from him. He remembered how he'd felt on the flight on the way over, cupping glass after glass of whisky and staring out at the clouds as they shifted and coloured in the fading light. How pissed off he'd been. How much he'd hated Sean for pressuring him into establishing a relationship he'd had no intention of following through on; how much he'd hated _himself_ for knowing that he was going to hurt Sean no matter what. Billy could remember what it felt like, coming through the arrivals gate the day before, dragging his suitcase and his holdall out onto the concourse, steeling himself for the sight of someone who had been such a constant in his life for the past few months, someone he didn't want to see at all, someone he wanted to see more than anyone else in the whole stupid fucking world. 

He'd seen Elijah first, his beanie pulled down low over his hair, dark glasses shading eyes so fucking recognisable it was inevitable that there were already people whispering behind their hands and pointing. Sean had been behind him, shirt open at the neck, jacket slung over one shoulder. He had also been hiding behind sunglasses, and as Billy had waited for them to catch sight of him, reminders of all those hundreds of emails and phone calls had suddenly overwhelmed him. He could remember the way Sean sounded first thing in the morning (when his voice rasped, and his thought processes rambled and stilled as he fought with the coffee machine and peeled fruit to make his bran less painful) and how he sounded last thing at night (tired and gentle and sleepy and relaxed, full of rambling tales of his day) and the change in him if Billy accidentally caught him in a meeting or talking politics (clipped, measured tones and polite, brisk enquiries after Billy's health followed by promises to ring back. Which he always did, because he was _Sean_ , for whom reliability was of the utmost importance). They did occasionally talk about politics, and Sean had once spent a good hour patiently explaining the difference between the House of Representatives and the Senate (Billy couldn't really remember anything other than the lilting cadences of Sean's voice as he had explained, and Billy had succeeded in relaxing to the sound of Sean at the end of a phone line, after a hectic day travelling half way across the country on a fruitless expedition to do an audition for _Lear_ ). Billy wondered how long Sean had been infiltrating every corner of his life, and how he'd managed not to notice for so goddamn long. 

But now, as Billy met Sean's warm gaze in the muted lamplight, he remembered how his breath had caught in his throat and his stomach had twisted at the sight of Sean at the airport, and how he'd gasped in spite of himself. He remembered, because it happened again, there in the hallway, the exhalation lost against Sean's neck, the shiver muted against Sean's touch. As the moonlight shimmered somewhere above the bright lights of Los Angeles, Billy pressed himself to Sean, and _breathed_. 

 

Billy tried to still his racing heartbeat a little as he faced Sean at the bottom of the stairs; after all, they were just going to go and sleep off a stressful day. Billy was about to follow Sean upstairs, follow him into his bedroom, and then share a bed with him. All night.

Together. 

Billy took a deep breath. He was going _upstairs_ , with Sean, and they were going to go to sleep. For so long he had erred on the edge of caution with regard to him and Sean; he'd constructed careful boundaries to their unorthodox relationship and demanded extra time to come to terms with his feelings, even when his heart had told him to throw caution to the wind and just do whatever he _needed_ to do. But now, as the lamplight merged with the late night darkness and they started up the staircase, Billy felt those familiar feelings of confusion and resentment fighting for supremacy deep inside his belly once more. Except this time, they weren't telling him to drop Sean's hand and head for the nearest exit, they were trying to tell him to grab his chance with both hands and tell Sean that he didn't _just_ want to sleep. That he wanted... more. That he wanted to go that one step further and finally put his mind to rest about how he really felt, and he wanted to do it _now_. All the same... Billy was exhausted. It had taken all the strength he'd had just to get this far; just to get on the aeroplane and stay on it, even when everything—his mind, his body, his soul—were telling him he was taking too big a risk. He'd struggled through the last day, angry, desolate and unhappily belligerent, seeing the world with all its harsh lights and unforgiving shadows. And Sean had seen it too; he'd watched as Billy had fought and shouted and sworn at the complexities of an existing relationship he couldn't quite bring himself to admit to. He'd waited as Billy lashed out the only way he knew how—with feigned ignorance and desperate silences—until he'd finally held his hands up and said _enough_. Or rather, _come and have coffee with me_ and _you do remember why you came here, don't you?_

Billy felt ashamed. Clumsy and tired and like a fucking teenager. He was sick to death of feeling trapped; trapped in Glasgow, away from some of his best friends, away from Dom (who shared a little bit of his soul—the part which loved, and wrote and _inspired_ ), away from Lij and Orlando and all the others who'd played a role in changing Billy's life from the mundane to the ridiculous. For so long he'd felt trapped in his own body, lost in a sea of emotions and feelings and responses he neither condoned nor felt able to express. His very dreams betrayed him with their depravity and the depth of his own emotion. He'd struggled, convinced that what he felt for Sean was irreconcilable with their continued friendship. There had been a moment of terrible realisation—not that very long ago at all—when Billy had realised that things had changed irrevocably. Their friendship had acquired a depth and a resonance that Billy had never shared with anyone else before, and Billy had been torn between being unable to let that end, and the inevitability of those feelings he neither named nor considered ( _love_ , he thought now, and smiled) becoming yet stronger and more dangerous. 

But then... over time Sean had shown a dedication to their friendship—their _relationship_ —that Billy couldn't help but notice. Billy may not have been astute enough to realise the truth—that Billy's feelings were that of love, not friendship, and that they were reciprocated—but he'd come to see Sean as playing a vital role in his life. Sean had betrayed himself by continuing to call him, to email him, to write long letters on thick cartridge paper (with a watermark that showed an intricate, elvish-style 'SA' if you looked close enough—Sean was lucky to get pages from the same A4 ruled refill pad whenever Billy sent letters back), even when Billy's behaviour and reactions took a more stilted, angry turn. When Billy had been standoffish and frustrated and angry, Sean hadn't slammed the phone down in disgust and called someone else instead; he'd listened to rants about council tax and the Scottish National Party and the abomination that was _River City_. In return, Billy had listened to complicated stories involving education bills and reforms and Governors and Senators (and once, a drunken breakdown of why programmes like _Desperate Housewives_ and its glitzy predecessors were responsible for the fall of the Great American Morality. Sean hadn't remembered the conversation the following morning, and Billy hadn't the heart to recap it for him; the conversation stayed—in all its convoluted, jumbled, exquisite, logical form—somewhere in a safe place in Billy's head). Billy wasn't one to admit ignorance, so he'd listened to conversation after conversation about American politics, and he'd never seemed to have been able to admit that his knowledge stemmed from two episodes of _The West Wing_ and the fact he'd once slept through _Primary Colours_. But over time, he'd begun to be aware of the intricacies of American democracy, in the same way he was sure that Sean was now better informed than most about the issue of Scottish devolution. But still. Sean hadn't deserved the way Billy had treated him the past few days. "Sean... I..." he stopped, blushing furiously as Sean twisted on the stair, looking down at him with a look in his eyes that darkened and flickered. Billy gulped; he'd spent so long imagining what it must be like to stand opposite a Sean who loved and _wanted_ , but the reality far exceeded his expectations. "I just. Well. I've been an arse," Billy finished lamely. "Sorry." 

Sean smiled. "You think you've been an ass, Bill?" Sean blushed, "I've been so bad tempered recently the kids asked me if I'd play Grumpy in their school play. They're doing Snow White," he told Billy, and unable to resist it, he grinned. "Ally's playing Doc. She's been walking round with a pillow under her sweater for weeks." 

Billy smiled, his fingers smoothing a pathway around Sean's pale wrist. "You? Grumpy? I'd never believe _that_." 

"You'd better," Sean nodded, raising an eyebrow. "Even the cat won't come near me. She's probably terrified I'll subject her to another diatribe on the pros and cons of long distance relationships." 

"You're kidding," Billy laughed, his grip loosening against Sean's hand. The skin had whitened beneath his touch. " _Another_ diatribe?" 

Sean shrugged and, leaning forward, took Billy's hands in both of his. "She probably got very bored after the first twenty or thirty times of hearing me," Sean told Billy softly, his hands encircling Billy's. "I'm going to have to be very nice to her after tonight, to apologise for boring her for weeks." 

"Weeks?" Billy couldn't take his eyes off Sean's hands, watching as he mapped Billy's fingers and his thumbs and the slender bones of Billy's wrists with long, gentle fingers. 

"Maybe months," Sean admitted, his gaze flitting back to meet Billy's. "Come on. Let's get off the stairs." 

Billy couldn't quite believe that this was actually happening. For such a long time, he and Sean had existed in a funny sort of half-life; a twisted semblance of reality where—for just a few minutes every day—they pretended to share an existence, bound together by a phone line that crossed oceans and cities and states and counties. Instead of being two separate, single adults living separate, single, adult lives in different continents, they were—for just those few minutes—together. And now, for just a few days, it was real. Nothing separated them now except the walls that Billy had cobbled together himself; haphazard, crumbling dry stone walls that were mouldering and decaying beneath his very eyes. 

He swallowed, wondering if the temperature on the stairs had gone up a few degrees in the past couple of minutes. Bed. With Sean. There was dust in the atmosphere; the kind caused by foundations crumbling. Billy smiled. 

As Sean led him upstairs, socks soft against the carpet, Billy wondered if things were supposed to feel this _right_. He'd been missing out for so long, making do with things feeling good and nice and fine and perfectly acceptable, thank you. It seemed that nobody had bothered telling him that perhaps he shouldn't have settled for less, that maybe he should always have been looking for something _more_. But then, Billy reminded himself as he padded across the landing behind Sean, you didn't really expect to fall for one of your best friends, and you certainly didn't expect to do it from God knows how many thousands of miles away. Billy had spent many an hour wondering how it was that he could have those sorts of thoughts about someone so fundamentally different from himself, and he still hadn't quite come up with an adequate answer. 

Until Sean turned to face him, a soft smile playing on his lips, his eyes warm, and Billy decided that however many worlds apart he and Sean were, right at this moment they were on exactly the same page. And as Sean smiled back at him, squeezing Billy's hand (so that their palms were warm and hot against each other), it was about time too. "In here," Sean told him, quietly, and Billy's heart pounded in his chest despite all his attempts to stay calm and collected. 

Sean's house had passed by in a blur of doorways and pictures and neatly folded sweaters and half finished books. His bedroom was big and dark and full of shadows; Sean purposefully ignored the main light and pulled Billy over towards the bed, leaning over and switching on one of the bedside lamps. The lamplight sent hazy warm shadows across the furniture and the bed, and as Sean turned to face him, his hands feeling their way up Billy's biceps, Billy wondered haphazardly if just being touched was always supposed to feel this good. His breath caught in his throat as Sean's eyes darkened perceptibly with desire and heat and desperation. Billy's hands shook, and he swallowed. 

"I've been thinking about doing this for so long," Sean admitted with a ghost of a smile, hooking his fingers under Billy's sweatshirt. 

Billy laughed, the sound a rough rasp at the back of his throat as he pulled his arms up and shrugged out of his sweatshirt, Sean helping it over his head. It fell to the floor with a soft thump. "About _this_?" he asked, leaning over to help get rid of Sean's cumbersome sweater. 

Sean pressed a quick kiss to Billy's forehead before pulling the sweater over his head. "About you," he explained, carefully undoing the buttons of his shirt, "about having you here, with me. About falling asleep with you. About waking up with you." 

"Me too," Billy said quietly, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt. 

Under normal circumstances they might well be intelligent adults with a wide and varied vocabulary, but right now, there was a huge gap in Billy and Sean's conversation; that of whether anything would happen between them undressing and them falling asleep. Billy could feel the gap taunting him; Sean's reassurances earlier that he was tired and had no intention of pushing Billy towards resolutions he wasn't ready to commit to weighed heavily on his mind. Sean wouldn't push the issue; once promised, twice shy - despite the slow burn of attraction and desperation that darkened Sean's gaze and promised much more than Billy had ever let himself imagine. He took a deep breath. 

"What if I told you I'd changed my mind?" Billy said, suddenly. The atmosphere flickered hot and cold. 

Sean stilled, his grip tightening on the buttons of his own shirt. His eyes didn't leave Billy's, but he said nothing, waiting for Billy to speak.

"Before, you said you were tired and sleepy," Billy said slowly. "What if I said I wasn't?" 

Sean narrowed his eyes. "You're not tired like you don't wanna go to bed, or you're not tired as in you don't want to..." he trailed off, finishing lamely "...go to sleep." He shrugged helplessly, and Billy wondered if there was a way of saying _sex_ that didn't make Billy—or Sean, it seemed - feel uncomfortable. 

"I don't want to go to _sleep_." Billy told him, running a hand up Sean's arm. The skin was hot beneath his fingers. He felt the soft whoosh of Sean's breath as he relaxed, calmer in the knowledge Billy wasn't about to bolt out of the bedroom door. "I just..." he stopped. "I don't think it's about being _ready_ any more. We're not kids; we don't have to get home for any curfew, no one's going to yell at us for being late to breakfast. We can do what we want." He paused, and Sean swallowed loudly. "I'd kiss you as soon as look at you, you know," Billy said conversationally.

Sean nodded warily. "Where are you going with this, Billy?"

Billy stepped closer, his chin lifting as he stood before Sean. "I'm saying I don't want to wait any longer, Sean. I'm saying I think it's fucking stupid for us to go to bed and pretend that neither of us is thinking of what we'd rather be doing instead of sleeping." He stopped, pausing for breath, blushing slightly, "This is where we both want to be, isn't it? I just... I don't know. Are you going to make me say it?" 

Sean smiled slowly, catching and stopping Billy's hand with one flick of the wrist. It was a Cheshire cat smile; one that hung in the air long after the moment was over. Somewhere outside of the shadow of Sean's irises, a fire burnt, and Billy stared on, mesmerised. "Of course," Sean murmured, and suddenly the room felt a whole lot smaller. 

Billy blushed bright red and took a deep breath. "Can we just get naked instead?" he asked, and Sean laughed softly, pressing his lips briefly to Billy's hot, pink forehead. 

"Have you any idea of how long I've been thinking about that?" Sean said quietly, taking a step closer. They were circling each other, a hair's breadth apart, Billy's skin tingling with the proximity. Sean carried on, "I've been dreaming about laying you down on that bed and kissing every inch of you for months."

"Months?" Billy took a deep breath and moved even closer; his erection brushing Sean's for the first time since they'd been downstairs. 

"Months." Sean agreed, suddenly so close to Billy that their breaths mingled as they spoke. "Thinking about having sex with you has kept me awake for months," he admitted, his breath hot against Billy's cheek. 

Billy gulped, and pressed his mouth to Sean's. _Christ_. The mood had shifted; the air fractured and burnt around them as they touched. It was one thing to skirt around the issue of them having sex; it was another just to come out and say it. _Sex_. Billy was Scottish, for fuck's sake. It was against his religion to discuss how he felt. Sean _couldn't_ just come out and say he'd been thinking about having sex with Billy; it was causing one hell of a reaction somewhere deep in Billy's stomach, his erection straining against his jeans. _Jesus_. He'd dreamed of this moment, he knew he had, but the feeling was lost somewhere between Sean's kiss and Billy's. 

Sean kissed him back, his fingers twining in Billy's hair for a moment before they both pulled away, gasping for breath. Sean tore at his last remaining shirt buttons with one hand, his other hand tugging at the bottom of Billy's t-shirt, yanking it upwards.

Billy pulled his arms up and twisted out of his shirt, struggling to get it over his head before dropping it on the floor. Sean placed the flat of his hand against the rise and fall of Billy's stomach. "I've thought about this," Sean said quietly, and his voice shook slightly as he spoke, his hand trailing a slow pathway up Billy's chest and round his ribcage, resting for a moment in the hollow of his collarbone. His voice was a hoarse whisper by now, his eyes dark and shadowy and quivering with desire. Billy swallowed as Sean leaned in, murmuring, "I've thought about fucking you; about watching you come."

_Christ_. Sean Astin talking dirty. The concept might serve to amuse, but the actuality was enough to make Billy shiver with want and longing and sheer, unadulterated desperation. 

To think that right up until earlier that evening Bill had only been interested in _release_ ; he'd thought of Sean in terms of getting off and coming. But now Billy wasn't interested in anything if it didn't involve him staying right here. As Sean's words twisted and turned in Billy's brain, heat flickering in his nerve endings and his fingers clutching at Sean's jeans, Billy was infinitely glad that he hadn't discovered the sheer wickedness of Sean's voice before he'd left Scotland. Billy would never have known that Sean's way with words was only the tip of the iceberg, and he may well have stayed in Glasgow and believed that getting himself off at the end of a phone line was the best way forward for both of them. 

Sean pressed himself closer, wrapping his arms around Billy's back, his hands sliding downwards until they fingered the waistband of Billy's jeans. Billy's skin prickled at the promise of more intimate contact. "I've thought about it a lot," Sean continued, and Billy's skin started to burn at the edges, "every time I closed my eyes I could see myself fucking you."

Something deep inside Billy shook with a combination of deep-rooted desire, desperation, and the sheerest flicker of anger. Enough to make Billy shiver in anticipation. It was always going to be a boost to anyone's self confidence to discover that someone _wanted_ you, but there was some deep-seated part of Billy that wasn't so keen on the realisation. Finding out that Sean had fantasised about him, that Sean had thought about _taking_ him—was enough to have Billy gasping for breath and reaching for Sean with hot, desperate hands. Billy couldn't shake the warm feeling in the pit of his belly, or the throb of his erection as he imagined Sean pushing him backwards, down onto the bed... for Sean to be _inside_ him. He couldn't hide the blush that coloured his cheeks as he realised he wasn't so keen on finding out that the idea of submitting to Sean's direction on the bed was having such an incredible effect on his libido. And it _was_. The possibility of being fucked—by _Sean_ —was exciting him, was driving him perilously close to the other side. To a place where sheer desperation wasn't an adequate description of how he felt. Where his heart beat faster and he gasped for air, and his hips pressed forwards of their own accord, and he forgot to berate himself for wasting so much time fucking around and hiding from himself. Billy shivered again, wanting nothing more than to be kissing Sean again.

There was something to be said for resolution, Billy knew, but right now he couldn't remember quite what it was. His mind was tired of bending and bowing under the strain of his own inner struggle, and Billy knew he was too exhausted to try and put himself back together again just now. Acceptance was on the horizon; it might not be here right now, but Billy knew it was on its way. He was sick to death of being so angry about something that felt so damned right to him. Resolution would have to come with time. But now, he didn't want to think about anything but him and Sean. Together. "Sean," he said, his voice low. His fingers clutched at Sean's open shirt, twisting in the cotton and pulling him a step closer. He kissed Sean hard, his mouth open, tongue twisting its way past Sean's possible protest and exploring its way around Sean's pliant mouth. Sean groaned against him, the exhalation a mere vibration against Billy's tongue. _Fuck._

Billy was utterly lost. 

All the same, Billy didn't want to rush this. Dragging himself away from the kiss, he helped rid Sean of his shirt, unpeeling the cotton from his broad shoulders. His thumb grazed the pale freckles on Sean's upper arms, feeling the gentle rise and fall of warm skin beneath his touch. There was only ever going to be one first time for them, and whilst Billy lacked a certain something in romanticism, he and Sean had been building up to this for so goddamn long that they both deserved something more than a quick fumble before a premature and unsatisfactory release. His breath was loud in the quiet room as he took in the sight before him; Sean stood, topless, the plains of his chest shadowed and hazy in the orange glow of the lamplight. He touched Sean tentatively, letting the palm of his hand graze its way up Sean's bare chest; he felt the gentle curve of his hip bone, the soft skin of his belly, up past the flat plain of his stomach to his sternum. Rough hair prickled against his thumb as he moved upwards. "Jesus," Billy muttered, tearing his eyes away from Sean's chest to meet his dark eyes. 

Sean was watching him, patiently, as Billy explored. As Billy's fingers found the soft curve of Sean's collar bone, his thumb resting for a moment in that ghost of a hollow between neck and shoulder, Sean let out a long breath, his hands reaching for Billy's face, his thumbs against Billy's cheekbones. His forehead rested wetly against Billy's for a brief moment. 

It was strange, Billy reflected, as his erection throbbed painfully against his jeans and Sean stared on and on across at him, his lashes dropping occasionally, how this moment was one of the most erotic things Billy had ever experienced. The way Sean was looking at him; like—and Billy could hardly bring himself to give headspace to the thought—like Sean was trying to reach inside him and touch his soul or something. He just... kept staring, until Billy's blush stretched from the tips of his red ears right down to his toes. "What are you looking at?" Billy asked finally, uncertainty wavering in his voice, unwelcome pride burning through his veins. 

Sean smiled, leaning in and pressing his lips to Billy's. His tongue swept the length of Billy's lip. "You," he said simply. He slid his arms around Billy's bare back, his hands hot against Billy's skin. "Just needed to make sure you were real," he said, the words soft against Billy's ear. 

This time, when he kissed Sean, Billy wasn't feeling angry. He wanted Sean, he _needed_ Sean, he fucking loved him. He didn't think about the fact that this was stupid, ridiculous, impractical. He couldn't think about what this meant, this starting of a relationship with a divorcee with kids and commitments and political aspirations, with someone who lived half a world away and didn't feel the call towards Glasgow like Billy did, that this whole thing was going to end in tears and was a totally fucking stupid idea. He didn't think about their friends, who probably thought that Billy and Sean were as mismatched and improbable as they themselves did. He just thought about the man in front of him, the man who was currently unbuttoning his flies at the same time as pressing his mouth against Billy's. _Sean._

Who hadn't been Billy's idea of perfection by any stretch of imagination. 

Billy tugged at his own fly and kicked off his jeans and yanked his socks off, all the time realising that he'd spent his whole life looking for perfection in the wrong place. Because... here it was. Perfection was before him, standing self-consciously in front of Billy, wearing only a pair of black boxer briefs - that went no way towards disguising Sean's erection - and smiling a goofy half-smile as he stared back at him. 

Billy closed the distance between them, taking a deep breath and letting his hand curl in the short hair at the nape of Sean's neck. Sean's skin was hot as Billy kissed him; his mouth no longer an unforgiving, uncharted expanse, but becoming familiar beneath Billy's tongue. Billy nudged Sean towards the bed; they bumped noses as Billy stumbled on their clothes (lying haphazardly across Sean's floor), bumped erections through (unsatisfactorily present) boxer shorts as they twisted and fell backwards onto the bed. Billy hissed, his breath sharp at the contact between sheets and Sean and Billy. Sean pulled away, opening his eyes and staring at Billy with something akin to hunger and dark desire. "Too long, Billy," he said finally, lying back, his voice hoarse, "we've been waiting too long." 

Billy agreed. Wholeheartedly. He fought against the rebellion of some part of his subconscious; the part which wanted to assert itself by pressing Sean down into the sheets, clinging onto Sean's biceps until his knuckles whitened and Sean cried out. Instead, he shifted, swinging one leg over Sean's flat stomach, straddling him and sliding down against Sean, until his arse pushed backwards against Sean's erection. Sean hissed again, his hands flying to Billy's hips, where they caught at the elastic waistband of Billy's boxers. Billy shifted his hips, pushing upwards as Sean pulled at his pants, pulling them down over the curve of Billy's arse and releasing Billy's erection from the confines of black cotton. "I've dreamed about this," Billy admitted, his words rushed and hurried as the night air breathed on his cock. Beneath him, Sean coughed, pulling himself up on his elbows and staring with undisguised desire at Billy and his newly freed erection. 

"You have?" Sean asked, his voice cracking. He didn't bother pulling Billy's boxers any further down his thighs than they already were, Sean's hands roaming upwards over the soft, pale skin of Billy's arse, nudging their tentative way into the cleft. His fingers shook. 

Billy nodded, leaning down and pressing his mouth softly to Sean's sternum. His fingers twisted in Sean's hair as he rolled off him, shrugging off Sean's hand and then his boxers and kicking his underwear off the side of the bed, onto the carpet. Sean lifted his hips—free now from the combined difficulty of Billy's weight and Billy's desperation in the face of a writhing almost-naked Sean—and tugged at his own boxers. 

"It kept me awake at night," Billy's mouth closed around Sean's nipple, his teeth nipping at the bud until it hardened beneath his tongue, distracting Sean from taking his boxers off, "Sometimes after I spoke to you," he moved onto Sean's other nipple, his tongue curling around it, tasting _Sean,_ "I was so fucking hard, I couldn't help myself."

Sean's hands were in Billy's hair, tangling in the curls and stroking the tips of his ears with shaking thumbs. "You couldn't help yourself?" he echoed, tugging Billy upwards and pressing a kiss to his mouth. Dragging himself clear of Billy, he tore his boxers off and dropped them onto the carpet. 

Billy nodded, speechless at being greeted by a sight that seemed to have been haunting his waking dreams for the best part of forever. _Sean_. Naked. Erect. Nervous as fuck, judging by the pulse beating in his throat. Had it only been a few months, this _thing_ that had been growing between he and Sean? Billy couldn't seem to visualise a time when his life—and his heart, although he didn't like to admit such things—didn't revolve around Sean. He cleared his throat, trying to speak. "I thought about this," Billy said, his voice low. His hand hovered somewhere above Sean's belly, edging towards his erection. "I _fantasised_ about this."

Sean shuffled closer, his hand touching Billy's. "What did you think about?" Sean asked, his foot hooking over Billy's ankle. He pressed himself closer, their erections just a hair's breadth apart. Even the air in the room seemed to frazzle and burn at the edges; flames licking at the atmosphere. 

Billy struggled to remember how to breathe. Just saying _you_ was probably not enough. Billy was loath to say that the extent of his fantasies was pretty much having Sean fuck him. He never seemed to get further than imagining Sean pin him to the mattress before sliding into him, filling him and taking him, before Billy came all over his hand and the sheets and himself. He shook himself, seeing Sean staring across at him in expectation. His hand closed around Sean's. "I thought about _you_ ," he said, his voice low and fucking urgent, "you fucking me."

He shook himself, seeing Sean staring across at him in expectation. His hand closed around Sean's. "I thought about _you_ ," he said, his voice low and fucking urgent, "you fucking me." 

Somewhere in the haze of his late night fantasies [Glasgow 00.00, Los Angeles 16.00], Billy had imagined saying that. He'd imagined the way the words sounded; he'd even mouthed them onto the empty night time air and blushed with embarrassment as he heard himself, imagining Sean at work or sitting in the sunshine as Billy indulged himself between the sheets half a world away. The reality, however, entirely surpassed every fantasy Billy had ever had. 

Because Sean closed the distance between them, hooking Billy's thigh and letting his cock brush Billy's. _Fuck_. "I think we had the same fantasy," Sean admitted slowly, leaning forward so his words were mere breaths against Billy's mouth. He pressed his hips to Billy's, grinding their cocks together. 

_Oh._

Somewhere at the edges of Billy's perception, down in the depths of his soul, ice was beginning to melt; small droplets of water were steaming and hissing as they misted. The head of his cock was sticky and hot and damp and desperate as it rubbed against Sean's, but he needed something _more_. "Sean," he managed, sweat beading on his forehead. His fingers clutched at Sean's shoulders. The room smelt of sex and anticipation and desire. 

Sean kissed him, the beginnings of his stubble scratching against Billy's. His hands were wandering, smoothing their way over the curves of Billy's back, stroking his neck, trailing a pathway to the curve of his arse. Billy felt like he was on fire. Sean kept on kissing him, his tongue sliding into Billy's mouth, playing with him as they twisted and writhed on the bed. Billy couldn't stop touching Sean, hands trailing onto his thigh, up his chest, down his forearm, feeling a hard nipple beneath his palm. He couldn't help but keep exploring, feeling the lack of distinction (the flat plain) between waist and hip, the wiry hair beneath his fingers as he moved up Sean's belly. 

Kisses became open mouthed; wet and hot and desperate, with tongues twining and words lost against each other. Touches became less exploratory and slow, and instead turned rushed and involuntary. Billy's hips bucked against Sean's, needing the contact like never before. He cried Sean's name against his open mouth. 

"Let me," Sean murmured, pulling away and laying the palm of his hand flat against Billy's sternum. Billy's chest rose and fell with hurried breaths, sweat beading in the curves of his skin. He reached over to the bedside table and fumbled in a drawer, bringing out a tube and a square foil packet. "Let me fuck you, Billy."

_Christ. Fuck_. His vision blurred for a moment as his imagination ran riot, and he nodded slowly. Desperate. Fucking Desperate. 

Sean leaned over, and wrapped his arms around Billy, rocking him gently. "Turn around," Sean said quietly, planting a final kiss on Billy's pliant mouth. Billy squirmed under Sean's touch, rolling over onto his side, facing away from Sean. His erection still dug into the rucked duvet, the movement of the cotton painful against his sensitive cock. He ground his hips into the covers, his buttocks clenching, the sensation uncomfortable and vaguely unsatisfying when he was so aware of Sean being so close. There was the sound of a cap twisting and the tear of foil ripping; he shivered expectantly, resting his head on the pillow. He couldn't help but be nervous; he'd spent the past few years as Sean's friend and nothing more. For some people there was only ever the blink of an eye between friends and lovers, but for Billy the distinction had always involved walls and fences and muddy fields miles wide. Going from _that_ to _this_ was one hell of a change for them both, no matter how much legwork they'd put in over the months, slowly falling in love with the aid of a few thousand miles and an eight hour time difference to stem the awkwardness. Billy knew he'd made the right decision—because, hell, if you were about to be fucked by the man you loved—possibly more than anyone else in the whole entire goddamn world, although it galled Billy to admit it—there's no way on earth you'd be questioning the decision either. Still, it didn't make the shift any less momentous. 

"Billy?" Sean's voice came in a whisper right beside Billy's ear, startling him out of his reverie. 

Billy twisted upwards, meeting Sean's gaze, softening as he breathed in the reality of the situation. He was with _Sean_. "Yep?"

"I love you," Sean murmured, the words hot against Billy's skin. 

Billy laughed, his heart jumping. Cupping Sean's face briefly, he tried to hide how startled he was at the sheer relief he felt at hearing Sean speak. "You daft soppy yank," he muttered, which at this point in time was Billy-speak for _me too. I love you too_. 

Sean stared at him for a moment, before smiling softly and pressing a kiss to the back of Billy's neck, his tongue leaving a silky wet trail down Billy's spine. All those weeks of late night conversations, when each night had been a variation of 'today _I lived my life and you weren't in_ it' under the guise of many a vague discussion of daily life; even they weren't enough preparation for the enormity of lying here, naked, with the object of Billy's affection. 

"Just wanted you to know," Sean continued, tasting a pathway down the curve of Billy's back. Sean's hand crept between Billy's legs (which opened rather unconsciously, much to the dismay of that small part of Billy's subconscious which was very much against the acceptance of such submissive desires), the palm of his hand flat against Billy's arse. Billy forgot about the strange feelings in the pit of his belly—anger? Fear? Redemption?—and concentrated on what it felt like to have someone touch him there. Billy pressed backwards— _upwards_ \- against Sean's hand, and one slippery finger pushed against the tight muscle of his opening. 

"Don't worry," Billy breathed, "I _know_." It had been a bloody long time since anyone (one particularly industrious, adventurous and well-appreciated girlfriend had relatively recently attempted to fulfil this desire of Billy's) had touched him in the curves of his arse, and Billy froze momentarily. Sean left his finger there, flat against Billy, and kissed his way back up Billy's spine until the muscles relaxed. 

"Just so long as you do," Sean murmured, his other hand ghosting a touch up Billy's side and coming to rest on his shoulder, his thumb outlining the muscle until it stopped spasming beneath his touch. 

"I _do_ ," Billy said, his voice cracking, and Sean obliged, his finger sliding in with a little more ease. And as he kissed and cajoled and stroked and pressed and stretched, Billy writhed on the bed beneath him, his breath hot and heavy against the pillow, desperate for Sean's touch and even more desperate for his kiss. Just when Billy thought he could stand it no longer, Sean bit down gently on the soft skin at the nape of Billy's neck, and Billy groaned, suddenly all too fucking desperate for Sean. 

Being fucked by Sean Astin had never really been that high on Billy's list of things he wanted to experience in his lifetime. Billy had realised he'd made a grave mistake in not increasing its priority about the same time as he'd felt the sweat bead across his brow and down the curve of his spine; when Sean had shifted his position, curling his leg across Billy's and straddling him, Billy had known for sure. 

And as Billy tried not to cry out at the removal of Sean's fingers from his arse, and subsequently tried not to cry out as he felt the subtle change in Sean's position, and the slippery pressure of Sean's erection pushing against him, being fucked by Sean Astin suddenly hit the number one spot on Billy's list of things he was fucking desperate to experience. 

Sean shifted above him, his hands pressing into the mattress either side of Billy's chest. Billy was suddenly overwhelmed by Sean's proximity; by his sheer _closeness_ , by the realisation that Billy was both turned on and desperate all at the same time as being so nervous he was shivering. There was the hot scent of attraction and pure, unadulterated sex in the air and Billy couldn't breathe; his whole body was concentrating on Sean. This _nearness_ , this concentrated destruction of the barriers of time and distance which had divided Sean and Billy for so long, it was driving Billy insane. Above him, Sean—this man who Billy _loved_ —was moving, shifting his knees so they were either side of Billy's thighs, his legs pressing down on Billy's as Sean's cock pushed against the tight, liberally lubricated opening of Billy's arse. Billy's chest tightened in anticipation. 

Sean slid in quietly and slowly at first, inching in gently against the unyielding muscles, and Billy was torn between thinking is _**this** what I've been waiting for_ and _please don't stop_. It fucking _burnt_ , despite the liberal amount of lubrication Sean had applied with shaking fingers. But then came the twist of pressure and the sudden give and the slide of movement; Billy felt the push past the first ring of muscle and _holy fucking **hell**_ Sean was inside of him. 

Sean gasped above him, steadying his balance against the mattress, his hand shifting closer to Billy's side. Billy's breath was coming in hot, tight exhalations against the pillow, his mind hot and full and unable to concentrate on anything but the burn and shift and the utter _stillness_ of Sean above him. And Sean might not be moving, but Billy could still feel Sean inside him, could feel the full, tight pressure of Sean's cock in his arse and the initial absurdity of penetration, and he couldn't help but laugh. "Sean," he gasped, and his voice was taut and high and breathless, " _please_."

He didn't know exactly what he was asking for— _pleading_ for—only that he'd admitted he loved Sean this evening, and this seemed a logical extension of that. Proof, really. Billy trusted his judgement (his instinct, his heart), enough to take this step, and the thought made him burn down deep inside. He felt like he was teetering on the brink somewhere, arms out ready to fly. "Sean," he said again, and he grabbed hold of Sean's wrist with one desperate hand. Sean shuddered above him, and Billy felt the inexorable slide of Sean within him, the touch of skin and cock slippery with lubricant and desperation slick against his arse. The movement was infinitesimal, miniscule, but the whole of Billy's being was concentrated on the shift of Sean's cock deeper inside him. His whole body was aware, was humming with desire and desperation and need as Sean pressed and pushed deeper, and Billy's eyes closed and flickered. Sean dipped his head and _breathed_ across the nape of Billy's neck, the hairs standing to attention and Billy gasping at the sensation as Sean pressed his mouth to Billy's neck. Sean pushed in a little further as he kissed his way along the curve and flex of Billy's shoulder, his cock sliding in with less resistance now. It still felt large and hot and vaguely uncomfortable, but Billy couldn't hate anything but the violent hammering of his heart and the sharp realisation that the discomfort was _satisfying_. Something inside of him burnt with humiliation, but as Sean pushed deeper and pressed his lips to Billy's vertebrae, Billy clung to the smouldering, flickering fire that burnt within him. 

"I've dreamt of this," Sean told him, the words hot and ghost-like against Billy's neck. The words were gasps—soft exhalations of sounds as Sean pushed further in, _right_ in, right until Billy could feel the pressure of Sean's balls against his arse. Sean dropped his voice, _oh god_ , "laid out beneath me, me-" Sean groaned, inching out a little, "-me fucking you."

Billy swallowed. _Oh god. **Fuck**_. His grip tightened around Sean's wrist, his knuckles white against the skin. "Me too," he said finally, with a gasp, as Sean pulled out. _More. Please_. "I wake up thinking about this." 

Sean pressed his mouth to the damp, sticky hollow in the curve of Billy's spine, resting there for a moment before pushing in again, his cock sliding in easier now, the burn less insistent and more satisfying. "You're all I think about," Sean told him, his voice hot and sticky with lust that dripped like thick, golden honey, "you know that, right?"

All these long months of talking and listening and _reliance_ that had existed between them, it was all here now, in the room. Billy _knew_. All those hours of conversations and occasional monologues and more than one drunken soliloquy whilst the other one was half asleep, they were powerful and sometimes the silences spoke so much more than words ever could do. 

They'd never said _I love you_ before this evening; they'd never said _this is stupid and difficult but I want to take a chance_ before tonight. "If I didn't know that," Billy muttered—his hand catching the pillowcase against his hot, damp palm, the cotton rough against his palm—"would I have been such an arse this weekend?"

Sean was pulling out again, his movements increasing in force as the heat increased; his rhythm began to miss a beat every now and again. "It's a beautiful ass," he said, with a puff of a laugh. The tips of his fingers ran their way over the curve of Billy's bottom, and Billy's breath froze on his lips.

"Arse," Billy berated him, desperately, sweat beading across his forehead and his cock aching. Billy was hard and it was fucking painful and he was so damn sensitive it hurt. His erection was pressed up against the sheets and that wasn't where it needed to be. "Sean," he said, and he shifted, drawing himself up onto his knees and freeing his cock from its painful trap beneath him. 

Sean's hands curled around Billy's pelvic bone, curving around the bones of Billy's hips as he shifted, unwilling (and unable) to let Billy apart from him, and Billy felt the pressure of Sean's grip as he slid into him again, steadying Billy with a soft hand. Billy grabbed hold of the headboard with one shaking arm; the room was stifling hot and the air was tight—Billy struggled to breathe as he tried to steady himself against the bed. _So this is what it feels like_ , Billy thought, wondrously, as Sean's fingers explored Billy's pelvis, sliding down towards Billy's cock. _This is what I've been trying to find, all this time_ \- Sean's hand curled around Billy's erection, and Billy stopped thinking as Sean began to move. 

Sean moved with an instinctive rhythm, sliding in and out of Billy with breaths hot against Billy's back. He was stroking Billy's erection as well, short, staccato tugs that occasionally hit the beat. Billy swallowed loudly, and itched to be in control of his own orgasm. It wasn't enough that Sean was kneeling behind him, fucking him. It wasn't enough that Sean was whispering (gasping, breathing) endearments onto the sticky night air, and that Billy was burning hot and desperate. Billy wanted— _needed—_ something more. He needed to feel more than just the dark, muscular burn across his thighs and the accentuated heat and depth of Sean's cock in his arse. He needed to be doing something. Participating in a way not just limited to being _here_. "Sean," he said, and his voice sounded unfamiliar, flickering with a new and hitherto unknown resonance. He reached down, and covered Sean's hand with his own, encircling his own cock. Sean pressed his mouth to the side of Billy's neck, still for a moment. 

"I've been waiting for this," Billy said, hesitantly, his breath catching. He'd started to move, trying to stay slow at first, Sean's hand beneath his on his erection. It felt strange, the familiar movement of hand against cock but with the unfamiliar feel of Sean's hand beneath his. "I got hard thinking about you fucking me."

" _Oh_ ," Sean's cock faltered slightly, stilling and bumping. His hand gripped Billy's dick tighter, and Billy couldn't help but sigh in sheer exhilaration, his own hand closing around Sean's with a white grip. The pressure was intense. 

"Just thinking about you..." Billy gasped as Sean pushed into him, heavier and more insistent this time, tight and hot and _oh god_ "...do that again."

"This?" Sean asked, pressing forward, right inside, until it felt like Billy was being split in two from the inside out. The most painful, satisfying, desperate experience he could ever recall, and then Sean just made it a hundred times better. His vision flickered at the edges, and he groaned—a low guttural noise that had Sean pushing into him, desperately, insistently. Their rhythm distorted, and Billy was jerking his own cock, leading Sean's hand against his own erection, feeling the staccato discrepancy between Sean's rhythm and his own. Sean pushed into him, again and again, and it caught like the burn of rich sugar. 

Billy could feel the change in pace, even before he felt the subtle shift in Sean's movements. He felt heavier, hotter, darker and the room grew hazy around the edges as Sean continued to push into him, sliding in and out with slick, desperate thrusts. Billy jerked himself off, pulling at Sean's hand, feeling the familiar (oh so familiar, but at the same time so unutterably alien that he couldn't quite believe it was happening) feelings of tightening and twisting in his gut. "Sean," Billy breathed, gasping out Sean's name onto the heat of the room, feeling the change affecting them both. Their movements were both disjointed and faltering now, Sean pushing into him with tight breaths, Billy jerkily tugging on his cock with tired hands. 

" _Fuck_ ," Sean muttered, and he pressed his forehead to the curve of Billy's spine as he twisted. "Love," he breathed, and Billy was left wondering whether the two were mutually exclusive as Sean pushed in one last time, slick and tight and hot and _shit_ , Sean was coming. He could feel it—feel _him_ , this man that he loved - and Billy was hard pressed to think of a single thing in the whole fucking world that could beat feeling your lover come inside of you. 

Sean's grip was loosening on Billy's cock, and Billy fought to keep the impetus going. He was so close, he could feel it, he was pausing on the brink. Billy could hear Sean, hear him murmuring words and endearments and _Billy_ over and over again, but he was still inside Billy, and right now Billy never ever wanted him to be anywhere else. His hips bucked, and sweat pooled in the curves of his thighs. Sean's hands—his _hands_ , how had Billy never noticed how beautiful they were before they were straying all over his body—were on him, Sean's grip tightening around Billy's cock once more, his other hand ghosting a path down Billy's damp, sticky skin, down his back and across his arse and down his thigh. Sean leaned over him, feeling the shift in Billy's rhythm, and murmured _come for me, Billy, please, I want to see you come_ across Billy's ear. Normally the cliché would have Billy running for the hills, but this time-

-Billy broke. 

He came, crying Sean's name onto the sticky, pungent air, coming in fits and pushes, all over Sean's hand and the bed linen and himself. He closed his eyes, fighting off the light as he threw his head back; he could feel Sean's hands on him, feel him looking and watching with sleepy, wide, bright eyes. He felt it all, just for a moment, the pent-up release of weeks and months of preparation and falling, the twist of his soul as something deep inside of him changed irrevocably. He wondered haphazardly if breathing was really necessary, and the world glittered around him as he fell. 

He sank his face into the pillow, not opening his eyes. Sean had slipped out of him as he'd come, as his hips had bucked and his eyes glazed, but Billy could feel him—hear him - beside him, sinking down onto the sheets and lying back against the pillows. 

Billy's breathing started to return to normal as he shifted, opening his eyes and rolling over. His thigh was in something wet and sticky; come, he thought, and something inside of him burnt, sleepily. 

Sean was leaning over to him, face red and flushed, eyes sleepy and half-closed. He ran one long finger down Billy's cheek, and smiled. 

Billy blushed, his eyes closing. 

Sean didn't stop, cupping Billy's cheek against his palm. 

The room smelt like sex. Hot, sticky, desperate, fantastic sex. Billy smiled, opening his eyes and saying eventually, "Does it sound corny if I say it's never been like that with anyone else?" 

Sean laughed, and shuffled closer. His skin was still red hot, his cock soft against his thigh. "A little," he admitted, smiling, "but not as corny as when I say it back to you."

Billy blushed again. "We're a right pair of idiots, you and me," he said, and his breath still felt tight in his chest. He wondered what they must look like: two men approaching middle age, famous in their own right, naked and red and hot and sticky on a bed. The soft orange glow of the lamp was casting a warm light across the room, and Billy couldn't explain how he was feeling. Months spent talking and learning and listening had led to _this_ —a feeling of such warm contentment and satisfaction (regardless of the burn of Billy's thighs and the sheer exhaustion) that he couldn't help but know he'd made the right decision. 

"That was..." Sean stopped, reddening. 

Billy shifted against the sticky sheets, torn between feeling thankful that his arse was his own again and the _need_ he felt to have Sean back inside him, filling him and making him feel like he was complete (he blushed at the cliché) for the first time in a long while. He'd never felt self-conscious whilst Sean was undressing him, when Sean was pushing his cock into Billy's arse, when he was crying out and coming all across Sean's bed, but _now_? As Sean watched him with eyes that glazed honey-pure, lips soft and red and skin flushed with heat—a mixture of attraction, exertion, desperation and embarrassment? Billy shrank under contemplation, and he struggled to fix on something that wasn't Sean-related. "That was _what_?" he asked, finally, unable to stop himself. 

Sean's hand moved to rest on Billy's warm chest. Billy's skin prickled at the contact, and he froze for a moment before covering Sean's hand with his own hot palm, his fingers twining with Sean's. 

"Go on," Billy said, shuffling onto his side and trying not to think about the fact his arse felt warm and sticky and that it was likely to be a mixture of lube and Sean's come. "Please." Sean's hand was hot and comfortable beneath his, and Billy didn't want to let go. Just the simple contact was enough to reassure him that right now, this was where he was supposed to be, and Sean—despite the fact that on paper they appeared mismatched, and even now Billy was hard pressed to work out why it was they'd fallen so heavily in love with one another—was who he was supposed to be with. 

"That was worth the wait," Sean said eventually, his voice low. His eyes never left Billy's. 

Billy's foot brushed Sean's ankle, his breath suddenly coming in a _whoosh_. "Worth waiting for again?" Billy forced himself to ask, referring to their impending separation; even now, after _that_ , he was worrying that perhaps Sean and he weren't supposed to be together in the long run. No matter how perfect it felt right now. 

"After you've gone back home and we're left calling each other at awkward times of the day and night, you mean?" Sean's thumb brushed Billy's sternum. 

Billy shrugged, deliberately not meeting Sean's eyes. "Yeah... when I'm not here and you're stuck having a relationship with a mobile phone."

Sean shook his head, and squeezed Billy's hand. "Hey," he said softly, and Billy flinched, wondering if this was it. Billy shook himself; hadn't they been through all of this already? "Look at me," Sean continued, catching Billy's chin between his thumb and forefinger. 

Billy took a deep breath and made himself meet Sean's gaze (warm, smiling, sleepy in the half-light). He'd never have dreamed that one day he'd be overwhelmed with emotions and feelings he could barely put a name to, all over this man. _Sean_ , who had counted away the hours in New Zealand, all the time needing to draw a line under that section of his life and promise himself he was capable of _more_ , that NZ wouldn't be it for him. Sean, who was American and proud of it, who would work tirelessly towards that goal of justifiable pride if only he had the means to achieve it. Sean, who thought too much and was stuffy and sometimes old-fashioned and who _felt_ life on an entirely different wavelength to Billy. Sean, who over the past few months had changed Billy's life, given him conversation and friendship and constancy and _love_. Who'd been such a constant in Billy's life over the past few months that Billy hadn't even noticed that the world was shifting on its axis somewhere to accommodate this reality where Billy loved Sean and Sean loved him back. Billy saw it all, written in the curves and smooth plains of Sean's face, in the sleepy upturned corners of his eyes, in the soft smile and the too-short hair and the beginnings of stubble. 

"I love you," Sean said finally, squeezing Billy's hand. Billy shivered, unable to help himself, and pressed himself closer to Sean's warm body. "And so what if you don't live down the block?" He shrugged, and slipped an arm across Billy's belly. "It doesn't mean we have to give up on us." 

Billy rested his head on Sean's shoulder. "I'm not giving up on us," he said softly. His fingers traced a pathway down Sean's chest. "Idiot." 

Sean smiled so hard it was almost like Billy had told him he was the love of his life or something. Billy blushed and pressed a kiss to the underside of Sean's jaw, where the curve of his neck met his chin. "Will you turn the light off, Billy?" Sean said finally, softly, sleepily. 

Billy leaned over to switch the lamp off, sinking back into the pillows as the shadows lengthened and the room grew dark. He was tired— _too_ tired. The sheer weight of change and realisation still hung around him like a shadowed albatross, pulling down across his shoulders and down his back. Billy may have accepted that _this_ was where he was meant to be, (right beside Sean) but that didn't mean he was ready to understand and recognise what that meant in the grand scheme of things. Their friends would still have to know, their publicists would still have to find out, possibly their fans sometime down the line. Sean's children, Billy's sister, their respective ex-girlfriends and wives. There was a long list of people, and it was inevitable that somewhere down the line Billy's relationship with Sean would only get _more_ complicated instead of less. He sighed, suddenly worried that perhaps he hadn't thought this through enough. 

Sean shifted next to him, rolling onto his side, facing Billy. As Billy's eyes became accustomed to the dark, he found he could make out the quiet, shadowed plains of Sean's face. Sean was watching him, eyes open. After a moment, Sean's arm reached out, his palm warm against Billy's belly. "You shouldn't worry so much about the what-ifs, Billy," Sean said, patiently. His voice was already ringed with sleep. 

Billy blinked, suddenly exhausted. For so many months he'd struggled on, tiredly battling those feelings that haunted his dreams—need and desire and sheer unadulterated loneliness at times - and against the nagging doubts that plagued him, telling him not to settle with what he knew. And here he was, more fulfilled than he'd ever felt in his whole adult life, and still he found room for worry. He was an idiot, and he found himself telling Sean so.

"Yes," Sean told him, shuffling closer. Billy could feel the warmth of Sean's breath against his shoulder. "We both are. That's why we're going to be great together." 

Billy snorted, laughter unexpected and warm in the gloom. "You," he said, which could have meant anything from _idiot_ to _love_ and probably meant that and everything in between. 

Sean smiled and pressed a kiss to Billy's freckled shoulder. 

Billy's hand closed over Sean's, warm and comfortable and sleepy in the shadows. 

Acceptance, Billy realised, might be even nearer than he'd thought. 

 

The End.


End file.
